Arch Madness

This might be the saddest tournament preview I’ve done since I’ve been here. The Valley was my baby from the 80’s on. Bradley and Hersey Hawkins raining buckets over anyone, Ashraf Amaya and Southern Illinois in the mid-90’s, Shea Seals and Tulsa and all the great Creighton teams with Rodney Buford, Kyle Korver and so on. Those years are mere memories. The tournament begins on Thursday and will be played in St. Louis as always.

The Valley, not that long ago, was good for multiple bids. This is not one of those years. 17th as a conference in KenPom, that puts them behind leagues like the WAC, Ivy and Sun Belt to name a few. The 1-seed is last year’s Cinderella, Loyola (IL), but the Ramblers are a far cry from last year’s team. They finished 19-12 overall and 126th in KenPom. Entering the NCAA Tournament last year, they were 45th.

Drake is the 2-seed, having shared the league title with Loyola. The Ramblers swept the Bulldogs. Drake was 23-8 and are 134th in KenPom, so they’re on the same level as Loyola. The 3 and 4 seeds are Southern Illinois and Missouri State, with both finishing 10-8 in league. SIU is 144th in KenPom and MSU is 173rd.

Three teams are jumbled at 9-9. They are Bradley, Northern Iowa and Illinois State. None of them are special but are capable of winning the tournament.

The Pick: Loyola - I took a closer look at Loyola and the numbers are pretty good. Well, better than the others in their league. The offense was brutal at times on non-conference play but was much better in league play. The concern lies in their glacial pace that means they’re susceptible to a hot-scoring opponent and they are bad at 3-pt defense but I’m not sure anyone other than Drake can take advantage of that