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Sunday, December 22, 2024
The end of the 2015-16 season marked the end of an era in the Missouri Valley Conference, and that’s saying something in a 109-year old conference where names like Oscar Robertson, Larry Bird, Wes Unseld and Ed McCauley grace the list of former stars.
Seventh-seeded Missouri State had No. 2 seed Evansville right where it wanted in the teams’ Missouri Valley Conference Tournament quarterfinal Thursday night-tie game, 15 minutes to play, pressure squarely on the higher seed. Then, with quiet efficiency on its next three possessions against the Bears’ matchup zone defense, the Purple Aces scored six straight points-layup, layup, two free throws. Evansville would not trail again.
Remember when all the talk was about how that Kansas streak of 11 consecutive Big 12 titles was in serious jeopardy? It was barely a week ago, but right now might feel like two decades ago.
Arizona showed resilience, the ability to adapt and the toughness and moxie needed to win a big road game on Saturday, even in a contest when it didn’t play its best.
The Missouri Valley Conference continues to claw out a spot just outside the top tier conferences in college basketball, and it did so again in 2014-15 with a noticeably improved product.
Friday may go down as a bad turning point for SMU. Also, a couple of players are on the move after being suspended, and a light day of game action in front of a very busy day.
Some college basketball thoughts from the first week of the new year:
There may not be another game this entire college basketball season that was more predictable than last night’s interconference matchup between Cincinnati and San Diego State. As expected, the game between the Bearcats and Aztecs was an evenly matched defensive grinder.
What looked like it should’ve been the game of the night wasn’t much of a game at all. Iowa State sometimes gets on those offensive runs at home when it looks like one of the top five teams in the country, and the Cyclones did it Thursday night in a 95-77 win over Arkansas. A game that looked to have a ton of promise coming in was never really close, and the Razorbacks were tagged with their first loss in seven games.
As a whole, this wasn’t the best year for the Missouri Valley Conference. But one team stood out in a big way nationally.
