Missouri Valley Conference Tournament

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The format

The tournament takes place in the Scottrade Center in St. Louis, which also will host first and second-round action in the 2016 NCAA Tournament. The No. 7-10 seeds will all play first-round games for the right to meet No. 1 seed Wichita State and No. 2 seed Evansville, and the Shockers and Aces are in separate brackets, so they can't meet until the final.

The reward for winning the top seed is mostly quality of opponent, and the Shockers are 9-1 this year against the teams in their half of the bracket, so it's not insubstantial. But Wichita State also would get marginally more rest than the rest of the field on a run to the title game: Its tip-offs would be 26.5 and 22.5 hours apart, while Evansville would theoretically go 23 and 20 hours between tips.


full bracket here.

 

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The play-in

While Wichita State and a few others have legitimate hopes of winning Arch Madness and playing in the NCAA Tournament, there is no such hope for Missouri State and Drake, participants in the late play-in game on Thursday night.

The 10th-seeded Bulldogs lost 16 of their last 18 games and lost all eight games against Wichita State, Evansville, Northern Iowa and Illinois State, by an average of more than 18 points per game.


Drake did finish the regular season on a high, with an overtime victory over Loyola.

Missouri State swept the season series with Drake, winning each game by nine points, but will enter Arch Madness with yet another season-ending injury in its backcourt.

Jarred Dixon, a member of the Valley?s All-Freshman Team, suffered a broken bone in his hand in the final regular-season game against Southern Illinois.

His injury, on top of season-enders suffered by Dorrian Williams, Austin Ruder and Shawn Roundtree, leaves the Bears with two healthy guards for St. Louis.

"It's a blow, but we've moved on, and we're going to have to pull together," Bears coach Paul Lusk said. "We're going to have to be smart about some things. I think our guys understand that it's going to be a great challenge."

League Newcomer of the Year Dequon Miller and freshman Ryan Kreklow are the only true guards available for the Bears, though Chris Kendrix will surely get some time at guard, as well.

It will be business as usual for Miller, who has played 35 or more minutes 17 times this season.



Connell?s Valley Power Poll

With the odds of winning Arch Madness

Wichita State (23-7, 16-2, 38 RPI): 9-5 ? Still the best and most complete team in the field

Evansville (23-8, 12-6, 92 RPI): 8-1 ? Aces have played the best teams in the Valley tough, and with an inside-outside game of D.J. Balentine and Egidijus Mockevicius, you can?t count them out

Illinois State (18-13, 12-6, 105 RPI): 7-1 ? One of the hottest teams in the Valley coming down the stretch ? they could do some damage

Southern Illinois (22-9, 11-7, 129 RPI): 15-1 ? Salukis 4-6 in last 10 games, plus have to wonder if Anthony Beane?s health is an issue

Northern Iowa (19-12, 11-7, 94 RPI): 5-1 ? Panthers have shown they can play with, and beat, the Shockers

Indiana State (14-16, 8-10, 184 RPI): 25-1 ? Sycamores are tough to handicap. Talented team, but lost six of last seven

Missouri State (12-18, 8-10, 234 RPI): Zero ? Trip to quarterfinals is the high end of expectations for Bears, who need to get healthy and regroup with reinforcements

Loyola (14-16, 7-11, 236 RPI): Zero ? Ramblers seem to be better than the eighth seed, but they haven?t shown it much on the court

Bradley (5-26, 3-15, 300 RPI): Zero ? This is the year to get the Braves? freshmen some experience playing in St. Louis

Drake (7-23, 2-16, 318 RPI): Zero ? Best Bulldogs can hope for is a play-in win, with the Bears? injury problems


--JCONNELL/NEWS-LEADER.COM