MVC: Arch Madness Day 2
The Top Seeds dominated Day 2 of the Missouri Valley's Arch Madness Conference Tournament.
We are officially in the semi-finals of the Missouri Valley Conference tournament, and all we see are top seeds. Each of the top four seeds have moved on and took care of business. Yesterday, we had to say goodbye to four more teams:
Missouri State
Belmont
Evansville
UIC
Only one of these games proved to be enjoyable to watch in Belmont & Northern Iowa. The other three ended up being blowouts by the better seeded team:
Indiana State 75 - Missouri State 59
Northern Iowa 67 - Belmont 62
Drake 79 - Evansville 58
Bradley 74 - UIC 47
Let’s quickly run through the other three games and dive into the UNI/Belmont game more in depth.
The Trees dominated the Bears
It was a close gave at half time where Indiana State led 34-31 over Missouri State. However, the Trees would go on to outscore the Bears 41-28 in the second half.
Ryan Conwell led the way with 20 points, 6 rebounds, 3 assists, 3 steals, and a block. Jayson Kent followed up with a double-double in 12 points, 14 rebounds, and a steal. Robbie Avila was overall a little quite, finishing with just 14 points, 2 rebounds, and 4 assists.
For myself, Swope and Avila were the two takeaways from this game. All eyes are on the Sycamores as a potential Sweet 16 team, however, in order to do that they need all players playing at their best. They aren’t a deep team, they used just two bench players yesterday for 17 and 15 minutes a piece. When a starter has an off day, it’s a struggle for Indiana State. In the first half, Swope shot terrible (he finished the game with 13 points on 6-16 shooting, including 1-10 from 3pt). For Avila, he was having problems matching up against Missouri State’s big men.
If we want to see an Indiana State run in March Madness, they are going to have to step up their defense and run with all hands on deck.
The Bulldogs eliminate the Aces
For the first 13 minutes of the day, it appeared that this might be a close one all the way through. UE and Drake exchanged the lead and Drake led by 21-18. However, it was all downhill from there for Evansville at the 7:25 mark. By halftime, the Purple Aces had been outscored 22-4.
The second half was more entertaining at least, in which both teams ended up 36 a piece, however, this game just speaks volumes for the level of talent that this Drake team has. Tucker Devries finished with 19 points, 6 rebounds, 6 assists, and 3 steals. Atin Wright finished with 12 points, 2 rebounds, 1 assist, and 2 steals.
The Bulldogs forced 12 Evansville turnovers, but the big key was holding the Aces to just 4-16 from 3. The 3pt shot has been the Achilles heal for Evansville throughout conference play and it came back to bite them yesterday. Evansville also got into foul trouble again in this one, leading to 22 free throw attempts for Drake compared to their own 12.
There’s two takeaways from this game:
This was a step in the right direction for Evansville and they need to focus on keeping their talent and adding on with guards that can shoot and a defensive big man.
For Drake, this is what you want to show the selection committee. You want to prove that you can demolish the lesser teams and they took care of business. The only thing I noted was, they need to take care of the ball better. Early in the game, Evansville had some fastbreak point opportunities that was keeping them in the game early.
It was all Drake in this one and I’m hoping we can manifest a Drake & Indiana State championship game on Sunday.
The Braves diminish the Flames
The last game of the evening was the complete opposite of the third game and UIC’s performance from the Thursday night in their double overtime win against Southern Illinois (which led to SIU firing their coach less than 24 hours later).
It was a close one at half with Bradley up 27-25. It was looking like UIC could be the Cinderella team of Arch Madness this season and potentially punch a ticket to the semi-finals, however, the second half was all Braves. Bradley outscored the Flames 47-22 behind Connor Hickman’s 20 points, 5 rebounds, 2 assists, 1 steal, and 1 block.
This was the same Bradley team that we knew we could see in the post-season. They cleaned up the glass by out-rebounded UIC 47-28, shot 52% from 3 on 12-23 shooting, compared to UIC’s 12.5% at 3-24. The Defense won this game for Bradley in which UIC shot an abysmal 13-54 from the floor (24.1%).
For Bradley, they need to clean up their defensive end on fouling. UIC shot 18-25 from the line compared to Bradley’s 6-14. That’s the only reason UIC even managed to get close to breaking 50 points in this one.
Similar to Drake & Evansville, there’s two takeaways from this game:
UIC needs to be happy with their performance this season. The record wasn’t there, but they competed with some of the top talent in the Missouri Valley and they even won a game to get out of Thursday in Arch Madness.
Bradley can be dominate on the floor. This Drake & Bradley game later this evening is going to be must watch TV.
The Panthers oust the Bruins
As forementioned, this was the best game of the action in Day 2 of Arch Madness. It was a close one throughout. Northern Iowa led 37-32 at halftime, and it was a stalemate in the second half where each team scored 30, leading to a UNI 67-62 win over Belmont.
There’s some drama in this one however. Many people of Twitter who aren’t even a fan of either team that was tuning in to the excellent ballgame called out the refs who made some questionable calls towards the end of the game. Malik Dia was called for a technical while lightly trash-talking at the 6:07 mark and Cade Tyson was called for a very questionable flagrant one foul at the 7:20 mark both in the second half in a close game.
I by no means am saying this game was fixed or there was bias, but the officiating was certainly questionable which we’ve continued to see throughout the first 8 games of the tournament.
For Belmont, their bench performance killed them where they same just 5 points produced in a combined 50 minutes of playing time. Gillespie led the way with 17 points, 6 rebounds, 6 assists, 2 steals, and a block. Malik Dia was close behind with 14 points, 4 rebounds, 2 steals, and a block.
For Northern Iowa Tytan Anderson absolutely dominated in this game, finishing with 19 points, 19 rebounds, 3 steals, and 2 blocked. Anderson was the largest reason the Panthers won this one where as a team they out-rebounded the Bruins 46-37 and 12-5 on offensive rebounds. As a team, the Panthers shot just 33% from the floor and 22% from three, so the offense wasn’t rolling on the floor. However, they shot 29 free throws compared to Belmont’s 14.
Both teams had an up-and-down year at times, but picked it up in conference play and led to them being the 4th and 5th seeds. Indiana State was going to have their hands full in the semi-final game today not matter who one, but if I were a Sycamores fan, I’d certainly rather play Northern Iowa over a red-hot Belmont team that had won 8 out of their last 9 games.
In this day and age, we have no clue what players are going to stay with the transfer portal being wide open and NIL flowing everyone, but for the sake of Belmont and the Missouri Valley, I hope that Gillespie, Tyson, and Dia all return for the Bruins.