3 MVC games Wednesday, Feb. 26

[Da Coach]

There are 3 MVC games Wednesday, Feb. 26-
https://www.espn.com/mens-college-ba.../date/20200226

[Tommy]

Evansville gets their first valley win today as they deal UNI their first home loss of the year!

[Go_Braves]

Evansville gets their first valley win today as they deal UNI their first home loss of the year!

Well - from my perspective - unless UNI's court becomes a Ice Rink - I might have "Believed in a 2nd Miracle on Ice" - and I checked my calendar - yup - still February not April 1.

[Go_Braves]

Well - I will state the obvious....
If both Bradley and Southern Illinois both win - then it is obvious who the "Top 4" seeds will be for the MVC Tournament.

And Missouri State will be playing (at home) against Southern Illinois this Saturday to "I assume" stay out of the MVC Tournament Thursday "Play In Game".

And Bradley will be playing Loyola (Chicago) for second place and to see if they play each other again in the Saturday
MVC Tournament third round.

[Tommy]

Well - from my perspective - unless UNI's court becomes a Ice Rink - I might have "Believed in a 2nd Miracle on Ice" - and I checked my calendar - yup - still February not April 1.

HA! Beautiful!

[Da Coach]

Updated probabilities-
https://twitter.com/mjhackman/status...93651886821383

Bradley now almost as likely to be the #4 seed and the #3

[bigjimmy]

Looks like this graph means SIU won’t be in the play in game and ISU Blue is just about a lock and will be if they win 1 of their last 2 games. Valpo clinches a spot with a win Saturday. Drake will be in the play in game seed to still be determined.

[Da Coach]

SIU loses at home to Indiana State 77-68-
https://www.espn.com/mens-college-ba...meId=401173591


And UNI wins at home against Evansville 84-64-
https://www.espn.com/mens-college-ba...meId=401173552

With Bradley's win at ISU, and SIU's loss to Indiana State, the final seeding position for the Braves is still not determined.
Bradley can still tie Loyola for 2nd place with a win Saturday, but Loyola will almost certainly have the higher NET, so it is almost a certainty that Loyola will get the #2 seed and Bradley #3.
Bradley has the tiebreaker with SIU because of their 2 wins over the Salukis, so if Bradley loses to Loyola and SIU wins at MSU, they will tie for 3rd, but the #3 seed will be Bradley's.
But, if Bradley loses to Loyola, and Indiana State beats Valparaiso Saturday, they will tie for 3rd, and the NET numbers are so close it could go either way, #3 or #4 seed.
And in the case that Bradley, SIU, and Indiana State all tie for 3rd, Both INSU and Bradley are 2-0 against SIU, so it would again come down to the NET numbers for Bradley and Indiana State, and they are too close to call right now. Currently, Bradley's NET is 107, and Indiana State's NET is 110.
So mathematically, Bradley could still finish with the #2, #3, or #4 seed, but the most likely is #3.
This all gives me a headache, so let's just hope Bradley wins Saturday.

Standings

Northern Iowa	13-4	-	24-5
Loyola Chicago	12-5	1	20-10
Bradley	11-6	2	20-10
Southern Illinois	10-7	3	16-14
Indiana State	10-7	3	17-11
Valparaiso	9-8	4	16-14
Drake	8-9	5	18-12
Missouri State	8-9	5	14-16
Illinois State	4-13	9	9-20
Evansville	0-17	13	9-21

NET rankings-
http://warrennolan.com/basketball/20...issouri-Valley

[Stryker]

Looks like Bradley is pretty much a lock for the #3 seed. I'm a little worried about St. Louis actually. I expect to win the first game, but that is probably it. I hope I am wrong. I just don't see BU making a 3 game run like last year this year. If they play really well on saturday maybe. Elijah can only carry the team so far, and I feel BU still has terrible steaks with no scoring like the first half tonight. DB keeps getting less and less efficient, 17 pts on 20 shots tonight, and the rest of the team is not good on the road. Hopefully we can make St. Louis our home away from home for the weekend.

[egib52]

It makes no sense to me that in NET ISUblue jumped 9 spots (and passed BU) for beating SIU on the road, but Bradley stayed at 107 with a road win:

101

110

Indiana St.

MVC

16-11

4-8

2-2

10-1

1-0

107

107

Bradley

MVC

19-10

4-8

1-1

14-1

1-0

So now its likely that if they tie (i.e. BU loses/ISUblue wins) we would drop to fourth. So if BU loses and ISUblue wins best scenario would be SIU also winning because then I think we are guaranteed the 3.

[Da Coach]

It makes no sense to me that in NET ISUblue jumped 9 spots (and passed BU) for beating SIU on the road, but Bradley stayed at 107 with a road win:

101

110

Indiana St.

MVC

16-11

4-8

2-2

10-1

1-0

107

107

Bradley

MVC

19-10

4-8

1-1

14-1

1-0

So now its likely that if they tie (i.e. BU loses/ISUblue wins) we would drop to fourth. So if BU loses and ISUblue wins best scenario would be SIU also winning because then I think we are guaranteed the 3.

Yes, though we are only talking about seeding for the MVC Tournament, not which place the teams finish in the final standings. If Bradley and Indiana State tie for 3rd, they will both officially go into the history books as 3rd place teams. However, the NET will determine who gets the higher seed next week.
Here is the NCAA's updated NET ranking through games last night-
https://www.ncaa.com/rankings/basket...l-net-rankings

Here is another listing of NET for the teams in the MVC-
http://warrennolan.com/basketball/20...issouri-Valley

Indiana State's NET is at 101, Bradley's NET is at 107. So as of now (those numbers will change a little) Indiana State would win any tiebreaker that relies on NET.
The NET takes into consideration game results, strength of schedule, game location, scoring margin, net offensive and defensive efficiency, and the quality of wins and losses. So some of those other factors that are hard to measure on a game-to-game basis must have changed to favor Indiana State.

Also, your final sentence is not correct, unfortunately.
Indiana State is 2-0 against SIU this season, as is Bradley. So a 3-way tie between INSU, BU, and SIU would still put Bradley into the #4 seed. Both teams would be 3-1 in the "round robin" that is calculated between the 3 teams, and the tiebreaker would again become the NET.

[Mikovio]

The NET is a huge mystery and we really don't know how close Bradley and Indiana State are in it because the NCAA only releases the rankings; not the calculations.

For instance, say all 353 teams are graded on a scale from 0.000 to 1.000. Because we don't know the grades, we don't know how bunched up the teams between them are. If they're all extremely close, then jumping 6 teams isn't a monumental task. If there are big gaps between them, it is.

The gap could look like this:
7.000 Bradley
7.001 UCI
7.002 Harvard
7.003 Belmont
7.004 Wake Forest
7.005 Miami (FL)
7.006 Indiana State

Or the gap could look like this:
7.000 Bradley
7.151 UCI
7.196 Harvard
7.213 Belmont
7.284 Wake Forest
7.345 Miami (FL)
7.368 Indiana State

Even if Bradley were just one spot behind Indiana State, if the gap is big enough, then jumping that one spot could be more difficult than jumping 10 teams elsewhere down the line.

So I think it's premature to say Bradley will finish behind InSU. While it's not a good thing that we in fact know the gap is big enough to fit 5 teams between them, the rankings could be misleading and given InSU made such a big jump overnight I'd venture to say the teams they did jump are bunched up quite a bit.

[egib52]

Also, your final sentence is not correct, unfortunately.
Indiana State is 2-0 against SIU this season, as is Bradley. So a 3-way tie between INSU, BU, and SIU would still put Bradley into the #4 seed. Both teams would be 3-1 in the "round robin" that is calculated between the 3 teams, and the tiebreaker would again become the NET.

Yes, I was wrong, you are correct. My recollection was that they each won on the road, but they did not.

[egib52]

So I think it's premature to say Bradley will finish behind InSU. While it's not a good thing that we in fact know the gap is big enough to fit 5 teams between them, the rankings could be misleading and given InSU made such a big jump overnight I'd venture to say the teams they did jump are bunched up quite a bit.

True, but for this scenario to matter Bradley has to lose and InSU has to win. So I highly doubt us losing and them winning is going to close that gap in our favor.

[Mikovio]

True, but for this scenario to matter Bradley has to lose and InSU has to win. So I highly doubt us losing and them winning is going to close that gap in our favor.

Excellent point!

Still kind of applies to catching Loyola, but with more teams between BU and LU what I laid out is less likely. Still, blow them out and KSU beats Kansas and who knows?