It’s Moving Day In the Valley(s)

(St. Louis, MO) – It is a monster day in the Valley(s)! With anywhere from 2 to 3 conference games left in the Missouri Valley, Ohio Valley and Great Lakes Valley Conferences, virtually every game has huge play off implications.

MISSOURI VALLEY CONFERENCE

With the top two and bottom two places sown up, the real drama in this league is in the middle. Five teams are separated by two games (with three to play) battling to squeeze into third through sixth place. Illinois State leads that pack with an 8-7 record, just one game in front of Missouri State, Northern Iowa and Southern Illinois. Bradley is one game further back at 6-9.

The Braves are currently seventh and Drake at 5-10 is eighth.  The final four teams (7-10) participate in the ‘play-in’ game at “Arch Madness” in St. Louis. Drake has a remote chance of catching one of those 7-8 teams, and a strong finish by the Bradley Braves could catapult them out of Thursday night.

The biggest game of the weekend finds third place Illinois State traveling to Cedar Falls to play Northern Iowa. With the right combinations of wins this weekend, by Monday we could have four teams at 8-8 and one at 7-9 with two games to play.

OHIO VALLEY CONFERENCE

Much like the MVC, the OVC is fairly secure at the top of the league, but the rest of it is tight.

Murray State has clinched the West Division title and Belmont has all but clinched the East. Those two teams will sit out the opening two rounds of “Music City Madness” in Nashville.

It’s in the last six positions for this 12 team league where it gets pretty interesting. Four teams will be eliminated and the rest battle for the right to play the Racers and the Bruins in the semi-finals. Most of the teams have three games left. With Morehead State (10-3) and Eastern Kentucky (8-5) fairly safe there are eight teams trying to get into the last four spots. Only U-T Martin & Tenneessee State are truly eliminated, so really there are six teams with legitimate opportunities to qualify for a trip to Nashville.

Idle Southern Illinois Edwardsvill (7-7) has a 1/2 game lead on Tennessee Tech. With a win over Jacksonville State (4-10) the Golden Eagles could eliminate the Gamecocks from the race and move into a tie with the Cougars for the 5th seed.

The struggle for that final spot comes down to SEMO and Austin Peay. The Redhawks play at U-T Martin and the Governors host Eastern Kentucky. Both teams are 5-8 in the OVC and currently tied for the eighth and final play off spot.

Are you interested in the upper echelon? Morehead (19-9 & 10-3) plays at Murray State (16-9 & 11-2) at 7 p.m.

GREAT LAKES VALLEY CONFERENCE

Pure mayhem awaits this outstanding Division 2 conference. With just two games to go, just about anything can still happen. Twelve of the 16 teams qualify for the GLVC post-season tournament. The top team in each division has a first round bye as do the next two teams (unrelated to division) and then other eight play first round games hosted by the next four teams in the league’s overall standings.

In the East, five teams have already qualified! What’s left to figure out is who qualifies where? Indianapolis (14-2) has a one game lead over UW-Parkside (13-3) and Lewis (12-4) is just one game further back.

In the West, defending national champion Drury (14-2) has clinched the top spot.  Truman State (12-4) has secured a playoff position, but is yet to gain a bye.

Then the fun begins. Over the last two games, teams will be eliminated, some will clinch spots and some will earn home court games prior to the tournament moving to Evansville.

One game separates four teams for spots eight through eleven and Quincy (5-11) is just one game further back. Only one of those teams will host a game in the tournament’s opening round and if Illinois Springfield (4-12) could win their final two games, one of those teams could get eliminated!

Today is a huge day in the GLVC. Missouri S&T (6-10) is tied for tenth with Maryville and they play at William Jewell (7-9) who is tied with Missouri St. Louis for eighth. Maryville travels to Quincy to try to put some distance between themselves and the Hawks and stay in contention for a home game.

This is one of the reasons we love college basketball, because “March Madness” begins in late February!

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