Struggling To Find An Invite

(St. Louis, MO) – NCAA Tournament bids will be tough to come by for Valley basketball programs in 2K14. Which league am I talking about? Both the Missouri Valley and Ohio Valley conferences will struggle to gain more than one bid per league this season.

First, let me remind you that I am a big Valley booster.  I have announced more MVC tournament basketball games than anyone on the planet in this millennium. I created a website just to promote and study these three Valley leagues, but in 2K14 the D1 versions of ‘the Valley’ have an uphill climb to get multiple bids to the ‘Big Dance’.

The Ohio Valley Conference is a ‘one bid’ league plain and simple.  Belmont is the one and only team that has even a remote opportunity to make it to the tournament outside of winning the league tournament.

The Bruins are currently 68^th in the RPI and that number is just too weak to be tournament worthy. Their claim to fame is a November 17^th win at North Carolina. Give Head Coach Rick Byrd credit for energetic scheduling.

Games against VCU, at Kentucky, at Ricmond and home and home with MVC power Indiana State is truly worthy of respect and some help come selection Sunday, but the OVC competition will not help them maintain that respect.

OVC teams simply haven’t scheduled well enough to garner a national pedigree. The league’s collective strength of schedule is 30^th of the 32 Division 1 conferences and when the Selection Committee adds the numbers, the SOS won’t bring the rescue they would want.

So, who can win the Nashville based tournament and earn that automatic bid? Belmont and Murray State are the defending division champions and lead their respective wings of the conference with undefeated 4-0 records.

Those two standard carriers are proven winners and Murray has fresh talent in Junior Jarvis Williams who grabs more than ten rebounds per game and Freshman Cameron Payne who is in a three way battle with Belmont’s Evan Bradds and SEMO’s Antonius Cleveland for Freshman of the Year honors.

Eastern Kentucky and Southeast Missouri were pre-season favorites but have struggled in the early going Valley play.  SEMO has some great fire-power and leads the OVC in scoring and EKU is a proven winner.

Those four teams will be pushing for favorable seeds in “Music City Madness” and those seeds will go a long way to deciding which OVC team goes dancing in March.

Do Good