The MVC Rundown

Those wily Bulldogs streaked through the latter portion of the Valley schedule and ran through Arch Madness with seemingly no trouble.

How good is this Drake team? Regardless of NCAA tourney results, this team is solid.

Then there’s Illinois State. Every expert had them penciled in for an at-large as long as they made the MVC finals.

Well, that happened, on top of a few other upsets around the country (South Alabama, San Diego), and it’s all up in the air. And there’s still several conference tournaments left where rogue substandard big-conference teams can get hot and win a few games to steal away at-large bids from bubble teams.

Well, it’s been a crazy year for the Ledger staff.

Neither myself or Mr. Wothe have been able to conjure up enough time to consistently post here, let alone post at all this season.

Watching Creighton battle Northern Iowa tonight on ESPN2 (in progress) has given me the motivation to dial up the keyboard and fire off some thoughts about the 2007-08 edition of Valley basketball.

Let’s start with Drake! What a surprise in Des Moines — nobody forecasted the Bulldogs would start 14-1 overall and 5-0 in MVC play. They will miss sophomore Josh Young who is out with an ankle injury, but on paper, Drake has other options to get scoring done.

Word on the street is that there are only 19 days until Drake kicks off Missouri Valley Conference basketball with a Nov. 9th game against San Diego.

For now, all we’ll do is link to the preview currently online at the MVC site, available here:

Season Preview

In fact, we can’t make any promises to the amount of content available this season. We’re currently discussing whether to make a trip to Vegas to cover Missouri St. there, and at the same time we’re questioning whether we can even devote time to updating every day.

Barring a Dana Altman-esque move, Mark Turgeon is the new Texas A&M coach as of Tuesday.

Turgeon fills the void left by Billy Gillespie, who took the Kentucky head coaching job.

Wichita St. hasn’t yet found a replacement for Turgeon. It was reported by the Wichita Eagle Wednesday that Oral Roberts coach Scott Sutton was not interested, while Winthrop coach Gregg Marshall is the leading candidate for the Shockers’ opening.

Dana Altman isn’t leaving Creighton after all.

“Thirteen years, I have poured my heart into this program,” Altman said at a press conference Wednesday in Omaha. “It was tough to let that go.”

Altman had accepted a job at Arkansas on Monday, but just 48 hours later, recanted it.

Speculation of Razorback players testing positive for drugs and other players with academic issues were not why Altman decided to rejoin Creighton.

Whatever the reason, the Valley has to be pleased with the decision.

Read here for the official release from Creighton.

After 13 seasons in Omaha, Dana Altman moves on from Creighton to Arkansas.

Surprising? Yes and no.

Altman has solidified Creighton as the class of the Valley, making the NCAA tourney seven of the last nine years. With the enormous Qwest Center sellouts, Bluejay crowds were easily the largest in the MVC.

It’s hard to walk away from that, but apparently, Altman was ready to move on. He indicated at a press conference Monday that he had spoken with several schools, and we’ll assume it wasn’t about looking into signing up for classes.

Southern Illinois gave Kansas a hell of a battle, and Tony Young’s long three-pointer at the buzzer nearly forced overtime, but Kansas prevailed Thursday night in San Jose, 61-58.

So the long offseason starts, but for some Valley programs, it had already begun several days prior.

Gone are coaches Porter Moser (Illinois State, fired), Steve Merfeld (Evansville, resigned), Tom Davis (Drake, resigned) and Royce Waltman (Indiana State, fired).

None of those moves are particularly shocking, and if nothing else, represents the demand for success that MVC schools are looking for.

Kansas is going to be just too much tonight.

Throw in the fact that SIU probably won’t get an effective Matt Shaw, along with the amount of depth and talent Kansas has, and it’s probably not going to be a close game.

As much as we dislike predicting this, the Ledger says Kansas wins 65-52.

Southern Illinois forward Matt Shaw will probably be sitting on the bench during Thursday’s regional semifinal matchup with Kansas.

Though Shaw not playing against Virginia Tech in the second round game didn’t seem to matter (SIU won by 15), it wasn’t because Shaw’s replacement did well.

Tony Boyle scored no points on one field goal attempt, had three rebounds and committed four fouls in just 20 minutes of action.

Thankfully the other starting four regulars had very solid games, most notably Jamaal Tatum and Tony Young hit more three-pointers than they missed, and the Salukis rolled.

For the second straight year, the Valley has at least one team headed to the second weekend of the NCAA tournament.

Southern Illinois is headed to what most call the Sweet Sixteen, after beating Virginia Tech for the second time this season.

The Salukis face Kansas this Thursday in the West regional semifinal in San Jose, Ca.

All of this was accomplished after losing Matt Shaw at the halftime buzzer of the first-round win over Holy Cross on Friday. Shaw hurt his ankle and was questionable for Sunday’s game, but didn’t play. It was the first game the Salukis were missing a starter due to injury this season.