The A-10 and Valley are going to be my conferences du jour this year. I like Brian's thinking on the Valley. Recent history shows Creighton will need a special season to move up the seed line. Can they?
Their non-conference schedule includes home games against North Texas (A Sun Belt favorite with returning player of the year Tony Mitchell) and a home game against St. Joseph's. They have road games at California (Bubble team) and Nebraska (in-state "rival"). Creighton is also playing in the *ahem*, Continental Tire Las Vegas Invitational. They include fluffer games against Longwood and Presbyterian before heading to Vegas on 11-23 to take on Wisconsin. They will either play Arkansas or Arizona State after that. Beating Bucky and California would be good wins and they must beat North Texas and St. Joe's.
Both Drake in 2008 and Wichita State last year achieved 5 seeds and both got rewarded with playing other "mid-majors", WKU and VCU respectively. I really like Creighton this year but think Sweet 16 is their ceiling.
The other 3 contenders are, as Brian noted, Wichita State, Illinois State and UNI. I'll lean towards UNI as the other bid. Wichita State lost their 3 top scorers, though they add Oregon transfer Malcolm Armstead and top 100 prospect Fred Van Fleet. Illinois State lost head coach Tim Jankovich to SMU but replaced him with Dan Muller, a respected assistant at Vandy. UNI brings back most of their top players and have a tough schedule the computers should like.
Creighton and who and where on the line for the BlueJays?
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