Over the next couple of week’s we’ll be checking in with each of the high mid-major leagues as to their mid-summer offseason status. Today we start with the MVC.

Patrick Marshall is MVC Correspondant for Rush the Court.  You can find his other musings on Twitter @wildjays and on White & Blue Review. 

Three Summer Storylines

1. Doug McDermott Continues All-American Status. Doug McDermott was named a first team All-American last season.  While the rest of the first team decided to leave school early for NBA riches, McDermott decide to stay in school. He did this to not only improve his game, but also has hopes to take the Creighton Bluejays further into the NCAA Tournament after leading them to the Big Dance for the first time since 2007 and advancing to the Round of 32.  His summer has been spent going to all of the skills camps including the Deron Williams/Amare’ Stoudemire Skills camp as well as the Lebron James Skills Academy, continuing to impress onlookers. With McDermott back, expectations are high in Omaha and many fans fear that if he does have the same kind of year or better that it might be hard for him to hold off on the NBA a second time.

What does All-American Doug McDermott have in mind for an encore in 2012-13?

2. Coaching Changes Welcome Back Familiar Faces. Southern Illinois’ Chris Lowery was let go after a tumultuous time in Carbondale during his final four seasons as head coach that saw the program hit rock bottom. To resurrect the Saluki program, MVC coaching veteran Barry Hinson returned to the league to take over the head coaching job. Hinson spent the past four seasons at Kansas in a supporting role as the Director of Basketball Operations. He becomes the second coach in the past three seasons to leave the MVC and come back to coach another team in the league (Greg McDermott is the other). Hinson was let go from Missouri State in 2008 despite being pretty successful, but he couldn’t get his team to the NCAA Tournament.  The question will be whether he can take Southern Illinois back to the postseason.

3. Teams Lose With Transfers. The resurgence of the MVC in 2012 caused a few of the better players in the league to look for greener pastures.  Drake’s Rayvonte Rice decided to leave the Bulldogs and ended up at Illinois, a school where he had hoped for an offer coming out of high school.  There was speculation even before last season that Rice was looking to transfer, but he had tried to dismiss it.  The departure of Rice, an MVC-All Freshman selection two years ago and a second team All-MVC selection last season, puts a dent into Drake’s drive to rise in the league for next season.  On the other end of things, Illinois State’s Nic Moore decided to leave the Redbirds after his All-MVC Freshman season. After an impressive showing at the MVC Tournament and the departure of head coach Tim Jankovich, Moore decided a change was in order.  However, there were not as many teams looking for Moore to join them as he probably expected and eventually followed Jankovich to SMU.  Illinois State was looking to be a contender this season, but again could take a hit due to the transfer of Moore and a coaching change.

Reader’s Take

Read the rest of this entry »

1. After speaking with its former coach Bruce Weber, Southern Illinois has decided to go in a different direction and announced Barry Hinson as its new basketball coach. Hinson, who previously coached at Missouri State, had been at Kansas for the past few seasons first as an assistant then as Director of Basketball Operations. Henson signed a five-year contract that starts at $250,000 and increases to $350,000 by the fifth year. We doubt that it will ever come out, but it would not surprise us if money–the difference in salary between Weber would have commanded and what Hinson is getting–factored into the decision by Southern Illinois.
2. Mount Saint Mary’s introduced Jamion Christian as its new head coach earlier this week. Christian, who graduated from the school in 2004, has previously served as an assistant at four different schools and most recently at VCU. So while Shaka Smart may be staying put, at least someone from his staff is getting paid for the amazing success of that program over the past two seasons. We expect more programs to try to raid Shaka’s staff so it will be interesting to see if he can maintain his current level of success as he loses more of his coaching staff.
3. It appears that Tulsa may be on the verge of announcing Danny Manning as its next head coach, but the school has issued a statement claiming that nothing is final although we suspect that they are just working out the minor details of the contract based on what we have been hearing. Mississippi State does not appear to have been as successful in its coaching search so far as they were rebuffed by Valparaiso coach Bryce Drew. Drew withdrew his name from consideration yesterday and stated that he plans to stay at Valparaiso where he took over a year ago. His decision means that he will at least be the coach at Valparaiso for a longer period than his brother Scott, who left the program after one season to become the coach at Baylor.
4. You will not see another one of these for at least another six months so you should check out what is likely the last Luke Winn power rankings of the year. Now that we are down to four teams Luke ditches the top sixteen rankings because frankly the other twelve teams do not matter any more. Our two favorite figures from this week’s rankings are the one showing that Tyshawn Taylor may not be quite as reckless as we all have made him out to be and a surprising figure about the defenses of Kentucky and Louisville. Like always, it is one of the more informative and educational reads you will have all week.
5. In an under the radar conference expansion/realignment story, the West Coast Conference announced yesterday that it would be adding Pacific starting with the 2013-14 season. This addition probably does not move the needle much, but college basketball fans will remember Pacific for one of two things: (1) back-to-back first round wins in the NCAA Tournament in 2004 and 2005 when it was actually the first round and (2) being the college of Michael Olowokandi, the #1 pick in the 1998 NBA Draft. We doubt that the WCC will use Olowokandi’s image to promote the conference the way that some other conferences have used the images of players from their new member schools.

1. It did not take Rhode Island long to find a new head coach as they announced Dan Hurley as their new head coach at a press conference yesterday. Hurley has limited coaching experience at the college experience, but the experience he has had so far has been phenomenal as he turned around the Wagner program leading them to a 25-6 record in just his second year there. While almost everybody understands the move by Hurley, Gary Parrish notes that it is interesting in light of comments about how Hurley would not be using Wagner as a launching pad, but then did so just two months later.
2. The situation at Southern Illinois appears to be a little less clear. Initial reports suggested that Bruce Weber had been offered his old job again. However, later in the day the school denied those reports and said its search was still ongoing. Weber appears to be the leader to become their next head coach, but the school reportedly has up to eight candidates (mostly current assistant coaches) who they would target to become their next head coach.
3. Scott Sutton interviewed at Nebraska on Monday according to his father. Sutton, who is 250-161 in 13 seasons at Oral Roberts, appears to be one of the hotter names not named Shaka this offseason as we have also seen his name linked to Tulsa and Mississippi State. With so many options on the table, we suspect that Scott will have his choice of leaving Oral Roberts if that is his desire. We should also point out how humorous other reports of this story were that reported “sources” had indicated that Scott had interviewed with the Huskers. While his father is technically a source, he is probably a little more credible than your average anonymous source.
4. Long time followers of our site are familiar with the musical works of Renaldo Woolridge (aka Baller Vol). Woolridge, who was a senior at Tennessee this season, was granted a hardship waiver and given an extra year of eligibility by the NCAA. Interestingly, Woolridge plans to use that extra year to transfer to another school. We are not sure what his reasons are, but Cuonzo Martin appears to have signed off on the transfer unlike a certain coach in Philadelphia.
5. There were a couple of big transfers in the Pac-12 yesterday. The biggest was the announcement that Trent Lockett, the leading scorer for Arizona State last season, would be transferring to be closer to his ailing mother. Lockett, who averaged 13 points and 5.8 rebounds per game last season, is expected to head back to Minnesota to be closer to his mother although he has not announced which school he intends to transfer to for his remaining eligibility. Lockett is the 12th Sun Devil to leave the program in the past four years although we cannot pin this one on the program as there appears to be more serious family issues at play here. Alexis Moore and Curtis Washington both announced yesterday that they would be the second and third Trojans in a week to transfer from USC. While things may seem really bad for a team that was 6-26 this season and now has lost three of its better players from last season, there is some hope in the form of a talented group of incoming players.

1. Yesterday, the eyes of the college basketball world were fixated on a hypothetical operating room in Chapel Hill, North Carolina where North Carolina point guard Kendall Marshall underwent surgery to repair a fractured scaphoid. Right now information on the procedure and the outcome is limited outside of the usual useless PR information we always get. For right now we are getting conflicting reports with some people saying that Marshall hopes to play while others are saying it is unlikely he will play. In reality, the only people who are capable of making that prediction are Marshall and the orthopedic surgeon who operated on him. Over the next four days you will hear plenty of “experts” speculate on Marshall’s potential to play take it with a grain of salt because without looking at the imaging of Marshall’s wrist, examining it, or being in the operating room everything is just conjecture. That goes for all of these anonymous orthopedic surgeons that everybody is citing.
2. After a solid, but unspectacular Kyle Cain appears to have decided that he will be transferring from Arizona State.  Cain, who is originally from Illinois, becomes the 11th scholarship player to transfer from Arizona State in the last four years.We are not sure how much Cain’s suspension earlier this season factored into his decision to leave, but something does not seem to be working in Herb Sendek‘s program and we imagine that the school’s boosters are going to be making a lot of calls.
3. After he took time off earlier this season for an unspecified medical condition, which he never came back from, we suspected that we might not be seeing Bobby Cremins for much longer and yesterday he confirmed our suspicions when he announced his retirement. While Cremins was fairly successful during his six years at College of Charleston, he is best known for his time at Georgia Tech where he made it to five Sweet Sixteens including an Elite Eight in 1985 and a Final Four in 1990.  Cremins finishes his career with 579 wins, which ranks him 46th all-time among Division I coaches.
4. With all of the focus in the state on whether or not Shaka Smart will head to Illinois to take over as head coach, the team’s former head coach, Bruce Weber, may be in line to get his old job back at Southern Illinois. According to a source, Weber is expected to interview for the job although the school has reportedly refused multiple attempt at confirmation. Weber went 103-56 in his first stint at the school including a Sweet Sixteen appearance in 2002.
5. While Weber may be taking over at Southern Illinois, another well-known coach is looking at Eastern Illinois. According to a report, Dick Versace has expressed interest in coaching at the school. Versace, who will turn 72 in less than four weeks, is most well-known for his time at Bradley where he was named National Coach of the Year in 1986 and for his time in the NBA where he coached the Indiana Pacers before becoming an analyst for TNT then working with the Vancouver/Memphis Grizzlies. Versace says he got developed the desire to coach again while helping out Rollie Massimino and feels that he can do the work necessary to compete at a high level. While we would not discount Versace for his age as he is not much older than two very notable Big East coaches, we do have our reservations about someone who has not coached since 1998 and at that point he was serving as an assistant. For their part, Eastern Illinois is yet to respond publicly to Versace’s interest in their position.

1. On Friday, Seth Davis published a series of scouting reports on teams from coaches within their own conference. While none of the analysis will be groundbreaking to those who follow the sport closely it is interesting to see how brutally honest some of these coaches are. For example, a Big East coach said of Connecticut, “The Huskies don’t run offense. I mean they literally don’t run a fricking offense.” We are assuming the coaches know many of these things about their own team, but we would be interested to know if any of the players and/or coaches read these comments and try to make a change based on them. We doubt it, but we imagine that at least a few of them will read these comments and be affected by them at least subconsciously.
2. If you are the coach du jour this March, you might be wise to consider the tale of Chris Lowery, who in 2007 was one of the hottest coaches in the country and then was fired by Southern Illinois on Friday. Lowery, who has two years remaining on a contract that is scheduled to pay him more than $5 million with a buyout of approximately $1.5 million, took the school to the Sweet 16 in 2007, but finished just 145-116 in eight seasons there. We are not sure where Lowery goes from here, but the hot rumor right now is that Southern Illinois plans to go after its former coach Bruce Weber if (more likely when) he is fired from Illinois.
3. After going through hundreds of resumes Air Force decided the best option for their next coach was their current coach and on Saturday they announced that they were removing the interim label from the title of Dave Pilipovich to make him their new head coach. Citing a desire to establish continuity for the team and his win over a San Diego State team that was ranked in the top 15 at the time (and leaving out his 1-5 record in his other games), the school opted to retain Pilipovich who will have his first head coaching job after working for 26 years as an assistant.
4. It takes a special kind of dumb to get kicked off the team with one regular season game remaining in your college career, but apparently Ty Walker is. The 7-foot tall center was dismissed from the Wake Forest team with just one regular season game remaining in his college career for an undisclosed violation of departmental policy. Walker’s troubles in college have been well-documented and his decline from one of the top recruits in the country coming into college to a guy who gets kicked off the team just before his college career is over could be a case study in how not to become a professional basketball player.
5. It seems like every year we link to a piece on Lenny Cooke, a high school legend who was famously destroyed at ABCD Camp in 2001 by some kid named LeBron. This year’s installment/update comes from The New York Times and takes a look at what has gone wrong in Cooke’s life. While you could probably write a similar story about many high school athletes, few carry the brand-name appeal to people of a certain generation (like the one of the two editors here) as Cooke. For those of you who are not familiar with Cooke’s story, it is essentially similar to the one that is told in Hoop Dreams except that Cooke was considered more of a sure-fire NBA prospect than William Gates ever was.

Patrick Marshall is the RTC correspondent for the Missouri Valley Conference. You can also find his musings online at White & Blue Review or on Twitter @wildjays.

Arch Madness Preview

League Play Summary

The Missouri Valley Conference broke out of its shell this season, bringing it back to a multiple-bid-conference even before the MVC Tournament this weekend in St. Louis. For the past four seasons, The Valley has only had the automatic bid advance to the NCAA Tournament and was viewed as a falling league after getting four teams into the tournament in 2006. This year, everything changed. With the breakout play of Creighton’s Doug McDermott and the dominance of Wichita State, the MVC has two teams ranked in the Top 25 for the first time since 1983 and the first time ever heading into Arch Madness.

Creighton started off strong this season and looked like the team to beat behind McDermott with early non-conference wins against San Diego State, Northwestern and a blowout of Iowa. A stumble against St. Joseph’s derailed the Jays for a bit, but they rebounded and remained a mainstay in the Top 25 until a three-game losing streak, which included a big loss at home against Wichita State. After heart-stopping victories in three of their last four games of the regular season, they are now back into the Top 25 heading into Arch Madness.

Wichita State played even stronger as the season wore on. After struggling a bit in the Puerto Rico Tip-Off, the Shockers have rolled to win 24 of their final 26 games and have only lost once in 2012 — to Drake in triple-overtime. For the Shockers, it has been a total team effort on the offensive and defensive side of things. Since they did not have a “star” player to add to the hype, it took a while for WSU to break into the rankings.

Teams like Evansville, Missouri State, and Northern Iowa had opportunities this season to make an impact, but came up a little short.

Reader’s Take

Regular Season Awards

• MVC Player of the Year: Doug McDermott, Creighton (23.1 PPG, 47.9% 3FG, 8.1 RPG) —McDermott had some early accolades coming into the season as a third-team preseason All-America by The Sporting News, but blossomed into a National Player of the Year candidate. Although his scoring numbers dropped between non-conference and MVC play, he has still been one of the more dynamic players this season and made Creighton a totally different team. McDermott is still third in the nation in scoring, and once the Bluejays get into the postseason, teams playing against him for the first time could be in for a big surprise. Read the rest of this entry »

Patrick Marshall is the RTC correspondent for the Missouri Valley Conference. You can also find his musings online at White & Blue Review or on Twitter @wildjays.

Reader’s Take

The Week That Was:

• Bracketbusters a Bust: Last weekend was the annual Bracketbusters event that the MVC has been involved in since its inception. In recent years, fans and even coaches haven’t been too fond of the Bracketbusters with the argument that being involved in this doesn’t help them. The fact remains that the Valley hasn’t really proved that they are past the Bracketbusters. In the five television games last weekend, the conference went 2-3 with league leaders Wichita State and Creighton the only ones to walk away with wins. As a whole, the league went 4-6. Missouri State and Northern Iowa were the big losers in this one in their losses to Old Dominion and Virginia Commonwealth. The CAA has dominated the MVC in this series.
• Shockers and Bluejays NCAA-Bound: Wichita State and Creighton have solidified their status as at-large teams for the NCAA Tournament with their wins this past weekend. The Shockers are ranked now in both polls while Creighton is hanging around just outside of the top 25. The latest projections have the Shockers as high as a #4 seed and Creighton around a #6 seed. Unless there is a total collapse, both of these teams should be in even if they do not win the MVC Tournament. They both could make a run once they do get to the NCAA’s.
• MVC Seeding Still in the Air: It’s the final week of the conference season and seeding for the middle six teams in the league is still to be decided with this week’s games. Illinois State, Missouri State, Evansville, Northern Iowa, Drake and Indiana State will all be fighting to stay out of the Thursday night play-in games in the MVC Tournament.

Power Rankings (last week’s ranking in parentheses)

Wichita State and Creighton are the clear top players in the Missouri Valley Conference this season. Any team in the middle of the league could emerge as a threat to get the automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament by winning the MVC Tournament.

1. Wichita State (24-4, 14-2) (1): Wichita State is on a roll and appear to be the best non-power six conference team in the nation. They are 12-1 since losing to Creighton on New Year’s Eve and do not look like they are letting up at all. Everything seems to be falling from the field, their defense has been solid and they have a big guy that can shoot the three.  All great tools for a postseason run. Head coach Gregg Marshall hopes that Wichita State can now get the media coveragethey deserve.
   

   Gregg Marshall hopes that Wichita State can now get the media coverage they deserve (AP)

2. Creighton (24-5, 13-4) (2): Creighton spent its week trying to survive — first with a come-from-behind win against Long Beach State with an Antoine Young buzzer-beater and then another comeback job, this one in overtime over Evansville Tuesday. Both games were at home.   One thing about Creighton that has helped them this season has been the walk-ons.  Read the rest of this entry »

Patrick Marshall is the RTC correspondent for the Missouri Valley Conference.   You can also find his musings online at White & Blue Review or on Twitter @wildjays.

Reader’s Take 

The Week That Was:

• Wichita State on Top: The showdown in Omaha was not really a showdown as much as it was a statement by the Shockers that they are the best team in the Missouri Valley Conference this season. Wichita State beat Creighton 89-68 to give itself a two-game lead in the conference race and all but seal the regular season championship. Creighton was able to get Garrett Stutz into foul trouble, but the Shockers showed they have a lot of different weapons with Joe Ragland and Ben Smith slicing and dicing the Creighton defense.
• Creighton Falls From Rankings: The Bluejays have been a mainstay most of the season in the top 25 rankings, but after their three-game slide culminating with the loss to Wichita State, the Bluejays are now on the outside looking in. They more or less traded spots with Wichita State, but the Shockers were still only ranked in the AP poll and not the USA Today/ESPN Coaches poll. For the Shockers, it is their first top 25 ranking since 2006. It is still surprising that although they have a similar record as Creighton and maybe has a better win against UNLV than Creighton’s win over San Diego State, Wichita State is not getting the same amount of respect as the Bluejays have had this season.
• BracketBuster Week—This week is the annual Bracketbusters weekend that includes all ten MVC teams. Five of the schools (Creighton, Drake, Northern Iowa, Missouri State, and Wichita State) will be featured on the ESPN family of networks over the weekend. A win over Long Beach State could help Creighton recover some of the lost accolades, but Missouri State and Northern Iowa have the biggest opportunity to make some noise with wins over the always-tough CAA.

Gregg Marshall's Shockers Surged Soundly Ahead Of Creighton Heading Into BracketBusters Weekend.

Power Rankings (last week’s rankings in parentheses)

Only a couple of weeks to go in the regular season and teams are finally starting to separate out.

1. Wichita State (22-4, 13-2) (1): Wichita State has been playing some great basketball for the past several weeks.  Other than the triple-overtime loss to Drake a couple of weeks ago, the Shockers have won the other 12 of their last 13 games. The balance on this team is what has made it so tough to go along with tough defense. Joe Ragland has been a big part of that balance. Many are surprised that Wichita is not ranked in one of the polls.
2. Creighton (22-5, 12-4) (2)— The Bluejays broke out of a three-game slump with a needed win at Southern Illinois before heading into the Bracketbusters game this weekend against Long beach State. Creighton is still in a good position for the NCAA Tournament as an at-large squad, but cannot lose to teams they shouldn’t in this final stretch run. Despite the public showing of head coach Greg McDermott and Doug McDermott during a timeout on Saturday, everything is fine between father and son. Read the rest of this entry »

Patrick Marshall is the RTC correspondent for the Missouri Valley Conference. You can also find his musings online at White & Blue Review or on Twitter @wildjays.

Reader’s Take 

The Week That Was:

• Creighton Knocked Off, Twice—Creighton went into Cedar Falls with an 11-game winning streak, but left with a loss against Northern Iowa. The Panthers’ Anthony James was the hero in this one. After an Antoine Young three-pointer to tie the game up with just under five seconds to play, James went the length of the court, dribbled in and then bounced out for a step-back three over the outstretched arms of Doug McDermott and drained it sending the Northern Iowa fans into a frenzy. Creighton was cold from the field again and lost against Evansville taking some luster off of Saturday’s game against Wichita State. Northern Iowa now takes the momentum of that win into Wichita to take on the Shockers on Wednesday. For Creighton, they are hoping to survive.

• Stutz is Stud—After concerns of Wichita State’s Garrett Stutz having some back problems and his ongoing health mentioned here last week, he spent last week proving everyone wrong.  Stutz went out and scored 25 points and grabbed 11 rebounds against Missouri State and then turned around and had 24 points and 15 rebounds against Indiana State. He went over 1,000 points in his career as a Shocker. Over the past four games he has averaged almost 25 points and ten rebounds per game. It will be interesting to see how he fares against Northern Iowa and Creighton this week.
• Braves Hitting Bottom—Normally, you wouldn’t talk much about a team that is 6-19 and 1-12 in the conference, but it is hard not to after the week Bradley had. The Braves lost by 30 to Evansville last Wednesday and then lost to rival Illinois State by 30 on Saturday, Bradley’s worst loss in the series since 1909. It is the first time in the storied program history that it has lost by 30 or more points in back-to-back games. Geno Ford has a long road ahead of him to bring this program back to relevance. Maybe the only good news is that four of their last six games are at home.

Garrett Stutz Has Powered The Shockers Past Creighton In The Latest RTC Power Rankings.

Power Rankings (last week’s rankings in parentheses)

Wichita State has moved up to #1 with Creighton’s loss to Evansville. The rest of the league had little movement, but the Panthers are back in the conversation.

1. Wichita State (20-4, 11-2) (2): The Shockers are the team to watch over the next few weeks. Although they appear to be a solid bet to make the NCAA Tournament, a couple wrong steps here or there may throw them on the bubble.  Toure Murry is on pace to reach the top 10 in Wichita State career scoring. He is already there in games played, three pointers, free throws made, assists, and steals. He will have to be a factor down the stretch for the Shockers to be successful. The defense has been big too as they held Missouri State to 10-33 shooting in the second half last week.
2. Creighton (21-4, 11-3) (1): By now, the different teams in the league know that if they can contain Doug McDermott in some way, they have a chance against the Bluejays. The supporting cast had been pretty efficient in picking up the pieces, but struggled against Northern Iowa and Evansville — which led to the losses. That completely contrasts the performance against Illinois State earlier in the week when the Bluejays scored 102 points. The players are having a lot of fun this season as teammates Jahenns Manigat and McDermott interview each other. Read the rest of this entry »

Patrick Marshall is the RTC correspondent for the Missouri Valley Conference.   You can also find his musings online at White & Blue Review or on Twitter @wildjays.

Reader’s Take 

The Week That Was:

BracketBusters—On Monday night, ESPN announced the matchups for the tenth installment of the BracketBusters series.  Creighton and Wichita State fans were hoping that a few matchups would go their way with St. Mary’s headed to Creighton and the Shockers getting an opportunity to knock of undefeated Murray State. This was not meant to be as St. Mary’s and Murray State were paired together. That sent Long Beach State to Creighton and Wichita State to Davidson. The Shockers’ triple-overtime loss at Drake hurt them more than probably anyone realized with this matchup. A total of five teams from the Missouri Valley Conference were selected for games on the ESPN family of networks. Here is the full schedule of games for the MVC:

February 17:

• Northern Iowa @ Virginia Commonwealth, 6 PM CT (ESPN2)

February 18:

• Wichita State @ Davidson, 11 AM CT (ESPN or ESPN2)
• Southern Illinois @ Ball State, 1 PM CT
• Indiana State at Butler, 1 PM CT
• Drake @ New Mexico State, 2 PM CT (ESPNU)
• Old Dominion @ Missouri State, 4 PM CT (ESPNU)
• Oakland @ Illinois State, 4 PM CT
• Loyola-Chicago @ Bradley, 7 PM CT
• Long Beach State @ Creighton, 9 PM CT (ESPN2)
• Western Illinois @ Evansville, TBD

More Free Basketball—This week, several conference games were contested throughout and sent to overtime. Missouri State lost to Illinois State in overtime last Wednesday to kick the week off.  Then, in Des Moines on Saturday, Wichita State and Drake went to triple overtime before the Bulldogs came away as victors. Finally on Sunday, Indiana State and Evansville battled to double overtime before the Sycamores left Evansville with a victory. The league is setup this season in a way that pretty much anyone can beat anyone on any given night.

Chaos in the Standings—With Wichita State’s loss, the Shockers fell out of the tie with Creighton in the league race. With the Bluejays holding a one game lead over Wichita, the game in Omaha on February 11th becomes even more important. But after that, the rest of the league is still in flux. A total of two games separate teams three through nine in the standings and no one seems to want to break out of that pack. One week, a team like Evansville will go 3-0 and then the next go 0-2. Others, like Missouri State keep splitting their weekly games. Right now, there’s little hope for more than two teams making the NCAA Tournament, barring a run in the MVC Tournament. Even something like that could knock Wichita State off if they are sitting on the bubble.

Creighton Draws An Interesting BracketBuster Date, But It Seems Like Other Valley Teams Could Do More Harm Than Good With Their Matchups. (UPI/Will Greenblatt)

Power Rankings (last week’s rankings in parentheses)

Drake invited themselves to the Creighton and Wichita State party while the rest of the league tries to position itself for the MVC Tournament that is about a month away.

1. Creighton (20-2, 10-1) (1): Creighton continues to roll along with a ten-game winning streak entering Wednesday’s action. There has been some debate based on statistics that Wichita State is a better team than Creighton. They may seem similar with schedules, but the Bluejays do own a win over the Shockers in Wichita. The one concern for Creighton however, is the turnovers and sloppy play as of late. The Bluejays had 19 turnovers against Bradley and were able to win, but at some point, those miscues could catch up with them. It is their teamwork that keeps winning games.
2. Wichita State (18-4, 9-2) (2): The Shockers hit a stumbling block in their triple-OT loss against Drake and then were assigned to play at Davidson in the BracketBusters later this month. These two things were probably not something they wanted, although coach Gregg Marshall gets to go a little closer to home. One asset to Wichita State is its depth, but in the loss to Drake, Marshall only played about seven players throughout the game. Also, despite Garrett Stutz’s back problems, he logged a staggering 50 minutes in that game. Read the rest of this entry »