Wild Night in the MVC

Wow!  What a night in the MVC.  A couple of surprises happened.  First, Indiana State knocked off Northern Iowa 61-60.  I picked up the Northern Iowa game online and listened to the last 3 minutes or so.  I have to tell you, NIU probably shouldn’t have even been that close, as there were a number of calls that caused the crowd to go nuts (at IN State).  Yet they had a chance to tie, but missed a free throw that would have tied it at 61.  But they had to get back-to-back steals to get within two with about 30 seconds left.

Then Wichita State hit a 3 as time expired to salvage a win over Creighton 62-61.  I listened to the end of that one as well on the Wichita State feed.  I thought the announcers were going to pass out after the shot went down.  Of course, that would have been OK, because they did a lousy job of keeping me posted on time and score, even in OT.

After that, UE lost to Missouri State 71-50.  That one wasn’t a surprise, because once again, Evansville sucks.  Can’t really blame this one on Jimbo Crews, but it feels like the legacy continues.  It just kills me that Bruce Pearl (now Tennessee’s head coach) was there at Southern Indiana (about 8-10 miles away from the UE campus), and UE didn’t dump Jim for Bruce.  I think he would have taken the job.

Finally, Bradley rose up and beat Southern Illinois 72-60.  It’s probably a little less of a surprise, since Bradley is 9-7 in the conference (as opposed to Indiana State’s 4-12 mark), but it still knocked down one of the co-leaders.

The conference tournament is going to be a BIG deal this year, as they could get as many as 4 teams in, depending on how things shake out.  I think 3 is more likely to happen, but you never know.