The Missouri Valley Conference Tournament starts on Thursday with two games. View updated college basketball odds.
College basketball fans are calling it Arch Madness in St. Louis, the site of the 2011 Missouri Valley Conference tournament. The madness begins on Thursday with a pair of opening-round games in which the winners will be playing for the right to meet the top two seeds in the conference on Friday.
#8 Southern Illinois (12-18, 5-13 Missouri Valley) faces #9 Illinois State (12-18, 4-14) in the first game followed by #7 Drake (13-17, 7-11) against #10 Bradley (11-19, 4-14). The winner between the Salukis and Redbirds will square off against #1 Missouri State (23-7, 15-3) while the Drake-Bradley winner gets #2 Wichita State (23-7, 14-4). Other quarterfinal matchups on Friday include #4 Northern Iowa (19-12, 10-8) against #5 Creighton (18-13, 10-8) and #3 Indiana State (17-13, 12-6) against #6 Evansville (15-14, 9-9).
Missouri State and Wichita State will likely have to avoid upsets and at least reach the championship game on Sunday for both teams to have a shot at getting into the NCAA tournament. At least one team will make the Big Dance from the Missouri Valley with the conference’s automatic bid, which is awarded to the tournament champion. But there is a chance both could go dancing depending on what happens in other conferences that could affect at-large bids.
The Bears earned the top seed with a 69-64 home win against the Shockers in the regular-season finale last Saturday, capturing their first Missouri Valley regular-season title since joining the conference two decades ago. They won six of their last seven games down the stretch behind four senior starters after being picked to finish second in the league prior to the season.
“This is the best feeling I’ve ever had in my life,” Missouri State leading scorer Kyle Weems said after beating Wichita State. “We’ve overcome a lot of stuff. We could have rolled over and been done. Not a whole lot of people counted us to be cutting down the nets on this day.”
Weems is the lone junior starter and averaged 16.3 points and a team-leading seven rebounds per game for head coach Cuonzo Martin, the former Purdue star who spent eight seasons on the bench as an assistant coach for his alma mater before taking this job in 2008.
The Shockers dropped two of three to close out the regular season and fell short of expectations as the team picked to win the Missouri Valley Conference in the preseason. They returned four starters from last year’s team that went 25-10 and finished second to Northern Iowa both during the regular season and in the 2010 conference tournament. However, a championship win on Sunday would still send Wichita State to the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2006.
