Valley Conference Play on Begins Tuesday

A Quirk in the Schedule

(St. Louis, MO) – A quirk in the schedule brings Missouri Valley Conference play into view. All twelve Valley teams will play their league openers this week. Two games will be played Tuesday and four more league showdowns later in the week.

Missouri Valley teams have combined to rank eleventh at both kenpom.com and barttorvik.com. The NCAA released its first NET Rankings and three MVC teams are ranked in the top 100.

While Evansville’s game at Murray State is Tuesday’s ‘Game of the Week’ on Gray Media and Matrix Midwest, Bradley’s visit to Southern Illinois is also an interesting match up.

Valley Conference Play at Murray State

Evansville takes the 140 mile trip south on I-69 to Murray, Kentucky. The Purple Aces (3-4) visit the Racers (4-2). Murray State has won three of its last four games and Evansville has won two-straight.

Murray State is an explosive offensive team. The Racers rank among the nation’s top twenty teams in effective field goal percentage (.591), field goal percentage (.514) and three-point percentage (.405). Coach Steve Prohm says he’s excited about the make-up of his team.

The first release of national evaluation tool ranks place Murray State as the 88^th best team. One of the reasons for the Racers’ early success has been the unselfish play of his talented team.

David Ragland’s Evansville team has struggled offensively, ranking twelfth in the twelve team Missouri Valley Conference.

Ragland says he underestimated how young his team really is.

Two holdovers from last season, Tanner Cuff and Cameron Haffner have each made big leaps in their play from last season and Ragland says Cuff is the guy that keeps his team headed in the right direction.

Cuff leads the Valley in assist-turnover ratio, handing out 24 assists and keeping his turnovers low (4).

The former Ohio Valley Conference ‘all-freshman team’ member Haffner, struggled to find his role last season. Ragland says the 6’2 guard has done a lot of little things to improve his game and they’ve resulted in huge benefits on the offensive end.

Freshman Gabriel Pozzato and Eastern Kentucky transfer Tayshawn Comer provide big contributions to the Ace’s team.

Pozzato (15.4 ppg) and Haffner (15.3) are fourth and fifth in the Valley scoring race.

Murray State swept last year’s games between the two teams and has won four straight against the Aces.

Bradley & SIU Begin Conference Play

In-state rivals tangle Tuesday night in Carbondale, Illinois. Southern Illinois head coach Scott Nagy gets his first taste of MVC action as the Salukis host Bradley. The Braves (7-1) swept last year’s games between the two teams and have won the last four contests with SIU.

Bradley has put together some very impressive offensive numbers. The Braves are second nationally in effective field goal percentage (.610), fifth in three-point percentage (.433) and thirteenth from inside the arc (.512). Bradley is 70th in the NET.

Guards Duke Deen and Zek Montgomery and forward Darius Hannah all rank among the Valley’s top-20 in scoring.

This could be a defensive battle. Bradley is the MVC’s most stingy defense, allowing just .402 of its opponent’s shots to fall. SIU is third best at .410. Saluki guard Kennard Davis leads the Valley in steals per game (2.5 per game).

Davis leads the SIU offense scoring 15.3 points-per-game Ali Diba is right behind at 15.1. Third leading scorer Elijah Elliott injured his knee and is out for the season.

Each of Tuesday night’s games tip at 7 pm. The Evansville/Murray State game can be seen on local Gray Media stations and ESPN+. Bradley’s visit to SIU can be enjoyed on ESPN+.

See our entire conversation with Steve Prohm here.

Here is our full conversation with David Ragland!

Four more teams enter conference play on Wednesday as Belmont entertains Illinois State and Northern Iowa travels to Illinois Chicago.

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