‘Valley Guys’ Making History

(St. Louis, MO) – Two head coaches that have won Missouri Valley Conference Tournament championships as players, will vie for the title as the leaders of their respective programs.

Before a national TV audience and a packed out Scottrade Center, regular season champion Loyola (27-5) takes on last season’s co-champion Illinois State (18-14) for a chance to play in the NCAA Tournament.

Loyola’s Porter Moser was a title winner with Creighton, while Illinois State’s Dan Muller picked up the hardware with the Redbirds. Neither team has won the tournament, nor advanced to March Madness in a very long time. Loyola last went dancing in 1985 and ISU hasn’t gone to the tournament since Muller played in 1998.

Muller’s team has been to the Arch Madness championship game in three of the last four years, so they have some experience from which to draw, but Muller says he still can’t fathom what it would mean to the University and the program to enter the national tournament.

 

 

Moser’s team RPI has ascended to 27 and yet most ‘experts’ say they still must win the Valley tournament to advance to the ‘Big Dance’.

The Ramblers swept the regular season games with the Redbirds, winning by the identical score of 68-61 in both games. The final score and the half time scores were identical in both contests.

The odd quirk in those identical outcomes is that Loyola’s scoring output was radically different from one game to the next, and demonstrates their great flexibility and depth. In the first game, four players reached double figures in scoring (Clayton Custer, Marques Townes, Bruno Skokna and Aundre Jackson). In the second game, three completely different players achieved that mark (Donte Ingram, Ben Richardson and Cameron Krutwig).

How the Redbirds choose to defend the Ramblers will be a key strategy point today.

The Valley will crown a worthy champion today and one of these two ‘Valley Guys’ will more deeply cement their reputation in the MVC history books.

Do Good