(St. Louis, MO) – After a week of worrying, waiting and fingers crossed, the Illinois State Redbirds are not going dancing after all. During Sunday’s NCAA Tournament Selection Show, Dan Muller’s co-champion Redbirds hoped to hear their name called, instead they will play in the National Invitation Tournament as the Valley’s regular season co-champion.
The Redbirds (27-6) tied Wichita State as the Missouri Valley Conference’s regular season champion and lost to the Shockers in the tournament championship game and were forced to sweat out an anxious week of watching bracketologists declare they would not get invited to the dance. The bracketologists were correct.
Illinois State returns to post-season play for the first time since 2015 when they play Wednesday night. While Muller, the players and fans are disappointed in missing the national tournament, post season play is still valuable for the team that has already produced more victories than any previous ISU season.
MVC ‘Player of the Year’ Paris Lee leads a senior laden Redbird team to the tournament opening round game with Big West Conference champion UC Irvine. Ironically, the Anteaters (21-14, 12-4) are playing in the NIT instead of the NCAA Tournament, because they lost the Big West Tournament championship game to UC Davis and former Bradley head coach Jim Les.
Wednesday’s game will be played at 8:30 at Redbird Arena and can be seen on ESPNU.
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Playing the point at @UEAthletics_MBB is @EKUHoops transfer Tayshawn Comer. The @ValleyHoops squad opens its season on Tuesday, but we wanted to get to know Comer now. Here is our conversation. #ValleyRunsDeep #NCAAHoops
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