2018-19 MVC Post-Mortem

In a calendar year, the Missouri Valley Conference went from its champion appearing in the Final Four to its champ being a No. 15 seed in the NCAA Tournament.

That was not exactly what anyone in the conference would’ve had in mind for its 2018-19 campaign.

Coming off a season where it put a team (Loyola Chicago) in the Final Four for the second time in six years, the MVC had plenty of expectations of building on that. Reasonably so. Loyola returned the conference Player of the Year and three starters total. Illinois State and Southern Illinois brought back a combined nine of 10 starters from first-division teams. Bradley’s rebuilding program looked right on schedule, with contention for the conference title the logical next step.

Instead, there really is no way to sugar coat that it was a disappointing season for the Valley. Maddening levels of inconsistency were frequent, with injuries also a consistent nuisance for quite a few as well. There also were no standout teams, and the result was a decided drop in overall strength as collectively the MVC finished 14th in the NCAA’s new NET ranking and 14th in the conference RPI, a six-spot drop from the year before.

Missouri Valley teams also missed on almost all of their chances for big splash wins out of conference (a collective 2-18 against Big Football conferences and the Big East) while also losing more than usual against peer leagues (a 2-7 mark vs. the Mid-American Conference, for example). On the plus side, the league was incredibly competitive: the top nine teams were separated by just five games. It just wasn’t especially good, not with co-champions Drake and Loyola both losing six conference games each and nine of the league’s 10 teams losing at least 14 games overall.

Loyola’s follow up to a Final Four run was a roller coaster. At times the Ramblers looked as if they barely skipped a beat from the year before, ranking among the nation’s leaders in field goal percentage and shooting a collective 55.3% in their 20 wins. Other times, Loyola looked like a completely different team. It had some brutal nights shooting and hit 37% or less six times. Three of those were in higher-profile non-conference games against Furman, Maryland and Saint Joseph’s, two were woeful showings in conference losses to last-place Evansville and at Missouri State, and the final was when Loyola’s hopes of a second straight NCAA Tournament run ended with 35.7% shooting in an Arch Madness semifinal loss to Bradley.

Illinois State entered with high expectations, bringing back three of the league’s top six scorers, but was disappointing by even team members’ own admissions. Southern Illinois returned five starters but regressed slightly, and it cost all-time Valley ambassador Barry Hinson his job. Bradley got off to a strong start, defeating SMU and Penn State to win the Cancun Challenge, but then slumped badly for an 11-game stretch before finding its way again. Indiana State played well out of conference-wins over Colorado, UNLV and Western Kentucky-but then sagged in the league.

At the same time, the impact of injuries on the MVC season can’t be ignored. Drake got off to an 11-2 start out of conference with point guard Nick Norton on an MVC MVP pace. A buzz was starting to build around the Bulldogs and they might’ve been one of the Cinderella stories of the country except Norton tore his ACL in early January and missed the rest of the year. Drake still was vastly improved and played well enough to tie for the conference title, but then lost impressive freshman D.J. Wilkins just before the MVC tourney, and then first team all-conference big man Nick McGlynn’s year ended with an injury early at Arch Madness too.

Loyola missed key sophomore Lucas Williamson for more than half the season. Illinois State, Northern Iowa and Valparaiso also all were affected considerably. Injuries are a fact of life in sports, of course, but the number of key losses throughout the conference certainly didn’t help.

Nothing framed the MVC’s unsatisfactory season with flashing lights more than its only representative receiving a No. 15 seed in the NCAA Tournament. At least Bradley saved some face for the Valley in the Big Dance, pushing 2 seed and eventual Final Four squad Michigan State, trading blows with the Spartans and trailing by just a point with less than five minutes left before running out of gas.

The Braves overcame some midseason doldrums to finish strong and fulfilled a very rewarding worst-to-first success story under coach Brian Wardle. They also showed that the talent level in this league is considerably better than a 15 seed. At the same time, a 15 seed was almost exactly what the MVC deserved for a season where too many teams did not bring their best often enough.

Final Standings:

Conference Tournament

The 43rd annual MVC Tournament and the 29th year of Arch Madness in St. Louis was marked by low scores but close games and plenty of dramatic finishes. Teams averaged just 60.5 points per game as the physicality, as is often the case in this event, was off the charts. Not surprisingly in a season where the league was so balanced, the tourney also furnished plenty of close contests, with six of the nine decided by five points or less, and five of them by either two or three points.

The tourney didn’t start out close, with No. 9 seed Valparaiso hammering eighth-seeded Indiana State 77-55 in the Thursday night first round opener. No. 7 Illinois State followed with a 65-60 win over 10 seed Evansville. Given the parity in the Valley all season, the Redbirds-a veteran team and a tourney finalist three of the previous four years-seemed to be a perfect candidate to break years of history showing it’s exceptionally hard to get on a run in this tourney from the play-in round. Instead, ISU was knocked out in the quarterfinals by second-seeded Drake, which won 78-62 with twin brothers Anthony (career highs of 16 points and 10 rebounds) and Tremell (career-high 26 points) Murphy carrying the load after star Nick McGlynn went out with a knee injury early in the first half.

A story of last year’s event was the state of Illinois, which furnished all four semifinalists. This year the state of Iowa came on strong on the outside with both of its MVC members in the semifinals, and against each other. Along with Drake, Northern Iowa advanced to the semis from a No. 6 seed, holding off Southern Illinois 61-58 as A.J. Green hit the go-ahead jumper in the final seconds. UNI then outlasted a battered Drake team 60-58 in the semifinals as Wyatt Lohaus hit the game-winner with 2.1 seconds left.

In the end, Bradley was a perfect champion for a tourney with so many close games. The Braves won their first MVC Tournament crown since 1988 by taking three games by a combined eight points. Bradley topped No. 4 Missouri State 61-58 in the quarterfinals and then stunned top seed Loyola 53-51 in the semis, just one day after the defending tourney champion Ramblers had looked almost invincible in a 67-54 win over Valparaiso that wasn’t nearly as close as the final score. The Braves then rallied from an 18-point deficit in the second half against Northern Iowa in the first-ever 5-vs.6 matchup in an MVC tourney final. Bradley took the lead on a controversial (but correctly called) five-point play in the final two minutes and then weathered a tying three-point attempt by Lohaus at the buzzer for a 57-54 win.

Postseason Awards
Larry Bird Player of the Year: Marques Townes, G, Sr., Loyola
Defensive MVP: Nick McGlynn, F, Sr., Drake
Freshman of the Year: A.J. Green, G, Northern Iowa
Newcomer of the Year: Tulio Da Silva, F, Jr., Missouri State
Sixth Man of the Year: (tie) Spencer Haldeman, G, Jr., Northern Iowa/Nate Kennell, G, Jr., Bradley
Coach of the Year: Darian DeVries, Drake

All-Conference Team
Tulio Da Silva, F, Jr., Missouri State
Phil Fayne, F, Sr., Illinois State
Cameron Krutwig, C, So., Loyola
Nick McGlynn, F, Sr., Drake
Marques Townes, G, Sr., Loyola

Season Highlights

• Bradley won its first MVC Tournament title since 1988 and advanced to the NCAA Tournament for just the second time in 22 years and the first time since 2006.
• Loyola won its second straight MVC regular season title and advanced to the NIT for the first time since 1980.
• Drake was one of the biggest surprises in the country, as a team that had a new coach and lost six of its top seven scorers from the previous season won 24 games and tied for the MVC regular season title.
• Marcus Bartley of Southern Illinois (first team) and Clayton Custer of Loyola (third team) were CoSIDA Academic All-America selections as the MVC joined the Ivy League as the only two Division I leagues to post a pair of Academic All-Americans.

What we expected, and it happened: Loyola remained one of the Valley’s best teams, winning 20 games and tying for the regular season title. The Ramblers simply brought back too much talent from their Final Four team to have been expected to fall off too far.

What we expected, and it didn’t happen: Illinois State returned an experienced team that by most any measure deserved to be one of the preseason favorites in the Valley. Instead, the Redbirds were a microcosm of the MVC’s season. ISU was inconsistent, nicked by injuries, missed out on most of its best chances for big wins, and was largely disappointing in falling all the way to a play-in game in the MVC Tournament.

What we didn’t expect, and it happened: Drake was one of the biggest surprises in the country. Darian DeVries did a remarkable job in his first year. Missouri State also made a nice run in conference play in coach Dana Ford’s first year.

Team on the rise: Drake, Missouri State. We’re not making the mistake of putting the Bulldogs in the category just below this again. DeVries did a masterful job taking over what could’ve been a messy situation, and after such a boffo debut there’s no reason not to think he won’t have Drake a contender again next year. Ford has loaded up recruiting at Missouri State, and it’s very possible the Bears will be the league favorite entering next season.

Team on the decline: Indiana State. A year-long celebration of the school’s 1979 NCAA runner-up team provided an optimistic starting point, and the Sycamores posted some of the league’s best non-conference wins, topping Colorado, UNLV, Western Kentucky and Horizon League regular season champ Wright State. Indy State faltered in the Valley, though, and the Sycamores’ slip from frequently respectable to near the bottom can’t be ignored, as 2018-19 marked the program’s fifth straight losing season. It’s no secret that coach Greg Lansing is increasingly under the microscope.

2019-20 MVC Outlook
Every conference has down years. In that regard, the Missouri Valley has little to apologize for even with the end of its streak of ten straight NCAA Tournament first round wins that dated back to 2012. Still, for a league that so relies on basketball as its flagship sport, there is urgency for the Valley to perform better collectively than it did this year.

The early line on next year’s league race is to expect more of the parity that dominated this year and, other than Loyola’s brilliance in its Final Four year, the rest of the MVC two years ago too. Loyola is still a good place to start, with big man Cameron Krutwig the favorite to make it three straight Ramblers to win the league’s Larry Bird Player of the Year award. On the other hand, other than Krutwig and Williamson, only Bruno Skokna remains as a key contributor to that Final Four team, so it will be time to put away comparisons to that 2017-18 squad.

Missouri State will be a chic pick. Dana Ford is quickly making the Bears a destination for transfers; now the task is for Ford to meld the talent into a cohesive unit. Bradley should remain a contender with veterans Darrell Brown and Elijah Childs leading the way, and watch for Northern Iowa, which has a star in guard A.J. Green, showed progress late and very well could contend if it can replace Wyatt Lohaus’s contributions. The work of Darian DeVries in his first season also says Drake can’t be counted out.

Illinois State is a giant wild card. Coach Dan Muller had a number of talented transfers sitting out this year, and undoubtedly it will be a fresh start of sorts after losing so many influential seniors. Valparaiso was considered by some a team to watch next year but has seen a mass exodus since the end of its season, leading many to declare the Crusaders program in shambles. What most seem to have forgotten is the players who abandoned ship were part of a team that went 15-18 this year; with respect to those who left, it’s not as if Valpo was a juggernaut before their exit. Still, there’s no question improvement is expected for a program used to success.

Indiana State might be at a crossroads, but the Sycamores do have two who have proven they can score in Jordan Barnes and Tyreke Key. Evansville is still building in year two under Walter McCarty. Southern Illinois is rebuilding, but is doing so with one of its own in Bryan Mullins, hugely successful as a player at SIU in the 2000s.

Twitter: @HoopvilleAdam