The Missouri Valley Report
The Missouri Valley is one of the best Mid-Major conferences in the country. On Wednesday night, it proved why. Let's break it down.
As many Missouri Valley college basketball fans know, the Valley runs deep. Currently, the MVC ranks as the 9th best conference in the country, and on Wednesday night it proved why.
Evansville Re-Claims its Home Court
In what might be David Ragland’s largest win as a head coach, Evansville defied the odds to defeat Bradley in Evansville 73-70 on Wednesday night. This snapped an 11-game streak of Bradley beating the Aces, which featured some blowout wins.
The game started off slow for the Braves, shooting under 20% from the floor for the first 10 minutes of the game, allowing the Aces to jump out to a 15-point lead. Slowly, the Braves started knocking down shots and the defense stepped up, holding the Aces scoreless during a 9-0 run to help cut the deficit to just 5 going into halftime.
The second half was no different. A constant back-and-forth battle between the two teams as Connor Hickman snapped out of his scoreless drought in the first half to help give the Braves their first lead of the game at the 15:51 mark. For the remainder of the game, neither team would lead by more than 4 points when the Aces were sent to the free throw line with just seconds left on the clock.
The drama thickened even more with the game clock expiring. Gage Bobe made two clutch free throws to give the Aces a three-point lead with 7 seconds left. The Braves raced down the court and Connor Hickman heaved a three that went off the front of the rim. Evansville failed to block out and Darius Hannah grabbed the board and threw it out to Duke Deen behind the arch. As the game clock went off, Deen’s shot slashed through the net. Upon review, the refs declared the shot no-good as the ball left Deen’s hand just 0.1 seconds too late.
It was an all around team effort for the Purple Aces:
Ben Humrichous: 14 points, 2 rebounds, 3 assists, 3 steals, 1 block
Yacine Toumi: 7 points, 5 rebounds, 1 assists, 1 steal
Gage Bobe: 7 points, 2 rebounds, 1 assist
Antonio Thomas: 8 points, 2 rebounds, 1 assist
Kenny Strawbridge: 6 points, 6 rebounds, 3 assists, 4 steals
Joshua Hughes: 9 points, 2 rebounds, 1 block
Chuck Bailey III: 7 points, 1 rebound, 1 assist
Tanner Cuff: 9 points, 5 rebounds, 1 assist
Cam Haffner: 6 points, 1 rebound
Bradley falls to 17-7 on the season and 9-4 in the Missouri Valley. The Braves now hold sole possession of 3rd place.
The Evansville Purple Aces move to 15-9 on the season and 6-7 in the Missouri Valley. The Aces are now in a four-way tie for 6th Place and 1 game out of 4th as Southern Illinois and Northern Iowa are tied for 4th at 7-6.
Drake fends off the Salukis in Overtime
Drake needed to bounce back against the Southern Illinois Salukis after an 8-point loss to Indiana State last weekend. However, the Salukis weren’t going to go down so easy. In this back and forth game, neither team ever led by more than 8 points. With 7:31 to go, Drake was up 65-57, but SIU game back to tie the game at 82 a piece to force overtime.
During overtime, the back-and-forth continued, however, Xavier Johnson hit a clutch shot to bring SIU within 2 points with 0:39 seconds to go. Tucker Devries then turned the ball over, giving SIU a chance to tie the game or win it at the buzzer. After a time out, SIU nearly turned the ball over on the inbounds pass, but recovered quickly. While getting the play started, the refs called a questionable jump ball, with the possession arrow keeping it on SIU’s side. However, there were just 1.5 seconds on the clock. Drake stepped up the defense and SIU failed to inbound the ball, resulting in a 5-second violation. Drake wins the game.
Looking at the box score, the Bulldogs shot a whopping 40 free throws compared to SIU’s 22 attempts. Had this game been in Carbondale, this might have been a different story.
Looking ahead into the weekend, SIU is looking to bounce back against Illinois State which has now lost to both Valpo and UIC at home. Drake is looking to keep it rolling against Bradley in Peoria.
Indiana State Demolishes Valparaiso
ESPN Bracketologist Joe Lunardi recently said the following:
Indiana State would have to win by 20+ every game and lose to Drake in 4OT in the Arch Madness championship game in order to get an at-large bid.
Entering play yesterday, Indiana State had a NET Ranking of 22, so this was already an absurd comment. However, the Sycamores took Lunardi’s advice to heart and decided to win by 40 points in a 101-61 rout against the Valparaiso Beacons.
Indiana State is now 21-3 with an 8-game winning streak. Their remaining games in the Missouri Valley contain just one game against a team over .500 in conference play and that’s Southern Illinois at 7-6. There is a legitimate chance that Indiana State goes 17-1 in conference and 28-3 on the season entering Arch Madness. How is that not a tournament team?
After the 16 minute mark in the first half, this game was just never close. Robbie Avila poured on 27 points, 8 rebounds, and 2 assists, while Swope, Conwell, Larry, and Bledson all scored in double-digits as well.
For the Beacons, Cooper Schwieger stayed hot with a 17 point performance. The true freshman is now averaging 15.6 points per game in his last 5 games. However, Indiana State’s defense held Isaiah Stafford and Jaxon Edwards to just 4 points on 2-16 shooting.
Through 2/7, Indiana State is still sitting at #22 in the NET Rankings and #34 in the KenPom. This is a tournament team. Period.
Northern Iowa Wins the Bear Fight
In another battle within the Missouri Valley, Northern Iowa and Missouri State went back and forth throughout the whole game. Neither team led by more than 10 points, which occurred with just 2 minutes to go when Northern Iowa started to pull away in their 72-65 win over the Bears.
For Missouri State, Dana Ford needs every win he can get at this point to try and preserve a job that might be a losing battle at this point. However, winning at Northern Iowa is a hard task as the Panthers are 8-3 at home.
Jacob Hutson, Bowen Born, and Nate Heise combined for 41 of the Panthers 72 points, while standout Alston Mason poured on 19 for the Bears. Mason is averaging over 18 points per game on the season, and over his last 5 games, 22.4 points per game.
This loss snapped the Bears 4 game losing streak, but Missouri State is going to look to fend off the offensive juggernaut in Indiana State this weekend at home.
For Northern Iowa, they now have back-to-back games against the two bottom teams in the MVC in Valparaiso and UIC. If the Panthers can get the job done, they could move to 15-11 on the season and 9-6 in conference, which would most likely be good enough for sole possession of 4th place next week.
Belmont Claims the Battle of the OVC
In a battle of the former Ohio Valley Conference schools, Murray State and Belmont did not disappoint on Wednesday night. Early in the first half, it looked like Belmont might start pulling away, however, the Racers bounced back quickly to trim the lead to just 1 at halftime.
Throughout the second half, it was a back and forth game. Murray State took the lead on a Nick Ellington basket, then followed it up on a clutch Quincy Anderson three to give the Racers a 4 point lead at the 17 minute mark. From that point on there were 12 lead changes.
For the Racers, Quincy Anderson has really stepped up in conference. Anderson poured on 21 points, 9 rebounds, 3 assists, and a steal last night. Over his last 5 games, he’s averaging 13 points per game which is skewed by a 2 point performance in their loss to Southern Illinois.
For the Bruins, they continue to dominate at home as they are now 9-2 at the Curb Event Center. Ja’Kobi Gillespie led the team with 24 points, 8 rebounds, 5 assists, and 2 steals, while Malik Dia and Cade Tyson followed up with some great performances of their own, posting 15 points, 5 rebounds, and 2 blocks, then 13 points, 9 rebounds, 3 assists, and 2 steals each respectively.
Belmont moves up to 13-11 overall on the season and 6-7 in conference while Murray State falls to 9-15 on the season and also 6-7 in conference.
Murray State takes on Evansville this weekend in Murray, Kentucky. Belmont has a matchup in Valparaiso against the Beacons.
The Flames Burn Illinois State at Home
The Illinois State Redbirds have had some problems playing at home recently, and those struggles continued last night in their 61-56 loss to the UIC Flames. The Redbirds have now lost to the bottom two teams in the conference at home to Valparaiso and UIC.
On the season, they’ve been very up-and-down. They’ve lost to Valpo and UIC, but also beat Belmont and Murray State, in which they’ve beat Murray State twice. In many ways, the Redbirds and Racers are very similar in the fact that every game is extremely unpredictable.
Last night for the Redbirds, Myles Foster, Kendall Lewis, and Dalton Banks combined for 46 of Illinois State’s 56 points, while the rest of the team was virtually non-existent. The bench scored just 3 points.
For UIC, Isaiah Rivera and CJ Jones led the charges with 11 and 13 points a piece, while their bench really stepped up with 21 of the team’s 61 points. Rivera has been on fire for the Flames in recent games as he is averaging 17.4 points per game in his last 5 games. However, that hasn’t translated to wins as the Flames are 1-4 in those games.
On the season, UIC moves to 9-15 (2-11 in MVC) and Illinois State falls to 11-13 (5-8 in MVC).
UIC hosts the Northern Iowa Panthers this weekend, while Illinois State travels to Carbondale to visit the Southern Illinois Salukis.