Is The Middle Still A Mess?

(St. Louis, MO) – After Tuesday and Wednesday’s games we still know practically nothing about the middle of the pack in the Missouri Valley Conference. Northern Iowa, Illinois State and Missouri State won and have avoided the Thursday night play-in game at Arch Madness.

Southern Illinois and Bradley lost and the Braves are now locked into seventh place and will play play tenth seeded Loyola in the opening round of the MVC tournament. Evansville and Drake will play the second game of Arch Madness. One will be the 8th seed and one will be ninth.

But Northern Iowa, Illinois State and Missouri State are all tied for third through fifth place and Southern Illinois is one game back.  Third place means you can avoid Wichita State until the finals of the NCAA tournament qualifying festivities in downtown St. Louis.

Unfortunately for Missouri State, they play the Shockers Saturday. Illinois State is on the road too. The Redbirds take on SIUC while Northern Iowa draws a tough assignment in playing at Indiana State. It is conceivable that those four teams could all be tied by Saturday night and league commissioner Doug Elgin would have to get the slide-rule out to figure who belongs in which spot!

If they ended up in that mess, tie-breakers include check head-to-head records and the RPI to determine where they are slotted. While we’re all awaiting Wichita State’s coronation the rest of the teams are battling for spots and glimpses of post season play.

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