Much to Play For on Valley’s Last Day

(St. Louis, MO) – Ties standings are everywhere going into the final day of the Missouri Valley’s regular season schedule. Seeding spots for the conference tournament next weekend in St. Louis are up for grabs for positions two-through eight.

The largest tie to unknot is found at second place where Evansville and Illinois State own identical 12 and five league marks. The team that finishes second has the luxury of playing their first round game at Arch Madness 2016 against a team that had to play the night before in the Opening Round. Neither of these teams will have to play regular season champion Wichita State unless they both make it to Sunday’s championship game.

At the bottom of the race is the desperate battle to avoid a finish in seventh or eighth place. Teams seven through ten have to play in that dreaded Thursday night, Opening Round. Bradley (9^th) and Drake (10^th) are assured of playing Thursday.

Indiana State and Loyola are in those other two spots with identical seven and 10 records, one game behind Missouri State. If either of those teams could catch the Bears there would be a huge sigh of relief from their coaching staffs.

The final tie is somewhat meaningless. Northern Iowa, the hottest team in the Valley, is tied with Southern Illinois for fourth and fifth place at 10 and Seven. They will play each other on Friday in St. Louis no matter what. The only thing to be determined is the color of the jerseys next Friday.

Tie-breakers abound, but to be sure, if you win your game on Saturday, you have a much better chance at improving your standing. Ironically the bottom four teams in the conference play each other on Saturday, and they could just be preview games for Thursday night!

Indiana State hosts Bradley and Loyola visits Drake. For either of those teams to catch Missouri State they have to win, have the Bears lose and then hope their RPI is better than that of Missouri State. That could give an edge to Indiana State, but as you know the RPI numbers change daily. The Bears travel to Carbondale for a game with SIU.

If Evansville, who hosts Northern Iowa and Illinois State, who travels to Wichita State, remain tied, the tie-breaker will once again the dreaded magic of the RPI. That ‘fuzzy math’ would seem to favor the Purple Aces.

Beyond the tournament positioning, Saturday is about seniors playing their last home games at Indiana State, Drake, Evansville, Wichita State and Southern Illinois. Some great players will be taking their final bows before the home fans. Khristian Smith and Devonte Brown may shed a tear at the Knapp Center in Terre Haute. D. J. Balentine, Egidijus Mockevicius and Adam Wing have had four dynamic years in Evansville. Wichita’s ‘Three Amigos’ (Fred VanVleet, Ron Baker and Evan Wessel) have made history at the Round House and Egyptian Dawg fans will be sad to see Anthony Beane wave goodbye.

Saturday’s games have important impact for next weekend’s tournament, but they will also include massive amounts of mixed emotions.

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