Two Or Three Teams Dancing?

(St. Louis, MO) – Will the Missouri Valley Conference have two or three teams in the NCAA Tournament? That will be decided Sunday afternoon. As we noted, Illinois State was the one team that could crash the Northern Iowa, Wichita State strangle hold on the Arch Madness title, and they are half way there.

Saturday, the Redbirds and Shockers (28-4) put on an entertaining display of athletic, intense, team-oriented basketball with ISU winning 65-62. Illinois State (21-11) has won six straight games, with the margins in the last three games being two, four and three points.

Senior Daishon Knight led the offensive charge with 25 points and sophomore Reggie Lynch protected the basket with five blocked shots.

Head Coach Dan Muller was happy for his team, but is focused on the job of winning the automatic bid to the Big Dance by defeating Northern Iowa on Sunday.

Back in October Muller told us he believed his team could be the best team in the league by the end of season, and here they are playing for the title.

 

 

Once the Redbirds got completely healthy, they have taken off. What they couldn’t do earlier in the season, win close games, they are doing regularly now. The eighth ranked Shockers will be playing in the national tournament despite Saturday’s loss.

The chore won’t be easy on Sunday. ISU faces a senior-laden Northern Iowa team that has rolled through the MVC tournament. Ben Jacobson’s team crushed Bradley and beat Loyola by 14 (63-49).

They outrebounded the shorter Ramblers, and forced Loyola into 10 turnovers and came away with seven steals. UNI (29-3) swept Illinois State in the regular season and Jacobson admits it’s difficult to beat a team three times, but more importantly the Redbirds are a talented, tall and athletic team, and pose large matchup problems for his Panthers.

 

 

The winner goes to the NCAA tournament. If Illinois State can pull off back-to-back upsets of nationally ranked teams, the MVC would find themselves with three teams dancing for the first time since that legendary 2006 season when the Valley sent four.

UNI hasn’t won the Arch Madness crown since winning two straight (2009 & 2010). Illinois State hasn’t taken home the trophy since they won two in-a-row (1997 & 1998), when Dan Muller was a star player.

How many Valley schools will be dancing? On Sunday we will find out.

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