Good weekend in the Valley? (Nov. 30-Dec. 2)

[LittleBrave]

We had a couple close calls vs. ranked opponents over the weekend.

Couldn't have asked much more out of Indy St., ISU-red, and BU.
Evansville held their own, and Drake and WSU scored big road wins.
Throw out the Missouri St. game and I'd say we had a pretty good showing for the Valley!
I'm not that concerned about getting 3 At-Large bids - last year, it was important to get multiple bids, which we did! As long as we get 2 this year, and possibly 3 for winner of Arch Madness, that's fine by me.

I'm more concerned about BU and SIU getting back to winning programs to help the Valley return to its strength of 2005-2007. It's evident that Wichita St. & Creighton will continue to roll in the next few seasons. And ISU-red is likely to have success and eventually make it back to the Big Dance in the next few seasons, especially with Muller at the helm. As long as UNI has Jacobsen, they'll be alright.

What I learned from this weekend is that we are a strong conference from Top to...nearly bottom. It's hard to believe that MSU could go from 1st to worst in just 2 seasons!

[tornado]

...I'd say we had a pretty good showing for the Valley!..

I don't share your sentiment -- If this was pretty good, I would hate to see mediocre....
I would instead say we had a pretty good opportunity for a good showing but going 4-5 with wins over Nevada, St. Joe's, Milwaukee, and Air Force were really just beating the teams were fully expected to beat and nothing more...
....not a single team with a decent RPI - in fact two of the opponents beaten have RPI's in the 300 range and none are better than 80

[LittleBrave]

I don't share your sentiment -- If this was pretty good, I would hate to see mediocre....
I would instead say we had a pretty good opportunity for a good showing but going 4-5 with wins over Nevada, St. Joe's, Milwaukee, and Air Force were really just beating the teams were fully expected to beat and nothing more...
....not a single team with a decent RPI - in fact two of the opponents beaten have RPI's in the 300 range and none are better than 80

I guess we don't see eye to eye on this one. I look at the losses by the 3 I mentioned as signs that the Valley is tough from top to bottom.
ISU-red, a potential contender in the Valley, almost beat a top 5 team on the road, Indy St. - a possible Thursday game team, took #25 New Mexico to OT, and BU, who most think will surely play on Thurday, played the #3 team in the country tough. Did you expect better than this???

And I thought that either Drake or Wichita would have blown their opportunities, as we've seen a lot of in the past few seasons in early road games, but they came through.

Let's face it - if ISU-blue and ISU-red had pulled off upsets, which was very close to happening, everyone would be talking about how the Valley is a 4-bid league this year!
I only saw the league as a 2-bid league from the start, and that appears where we're headed, but it's a stronger conference than last year.

Too early to tell, but I think that it will be Creighton & ISU-red in a race for the top, with Wichita St., UNI, and Drake with solid conference records that may deem consideration for NIT bids. Everyone else (from 6-9) will beat each other up, and Missouri St. will take an absolute whoopin' (from the way they've played so far!) and will be lucky to win 3 Valley games.