ST. LOUIS—Welcome to Doug Elgin’s worst week of the year.
The Missouri Valley Conference commissioner is resigned to the likelihood that for the second straight year he’ll have one representative in the NCAA tournament. Northern Iowa (23-10) is prepared to go it alone after beating Illinois State 60-57 in overtime for the conference tournament championship on Sunday, perhaps as a 13th seed befitting its 68 RPI.
The conference is also campaigning for Creighton, which shared the regular-season title with Northern Iowa and has a league-best 39 RPI while hoping for a minimum of upsets in other conference tournaments. It was perhaps a telling sign that coach Dana Altman declined to campaign for himself after the Bluejays’ 73-49 loss to Illinois State.
Creighton (26-7) had been peaking, carrying an 11-game winning streak into that dud.
“It’s miserable,” Elgin said. “You stress over it. I’ve been texting colleagues on the cell phone already. It’s a rough week, with the fate or your teams in the hands of others.”
Before Sunday’s conference final, the league released research that showed only seven teams with 26 wins did not make the NCAA tournament—none from conferences ranked in the top 10 in the country or with RPIs 64 or lower. The Valley is ranked ninth.
Three 26-win teams did not make the NCAA field last year—Stephen F. Austin (26-5), IUPUI (26-7) and Robert Morris (26-7), according to the Valley research. Stephen F. Austin had a 64 RPI in a 17th-ranked league, IUPUI had a 69 RPI in a 22nd-ranked league and Robert Morris had a 135 RPI in a 24th-ranked league.
Illinois State, which hasn’t been to the NCAAs since 1998, had a respectable 45 RPI before Sunday’s final. What hurts the Redbirds is a weak non-conference schedule ranked 176th that led to a 14-0 start. Creighton was 9-5 against the RPI’s top 100, and 8-4 on the road.
“I think Creighton’s resume is significant, sufficiently strong for them to get into the conversation, and that’s all you can ask,” Elgin said. “I’m not sure what more they could have done. They could have won more games, obviously, but I think they have to be in the conversation.”
Elgin, a past member of the NCAA selection committee, said he’ll accept whatever happens.
“I have faith in the process,” Elgin said. “I’ve been part of the process in the past. There have been years when I think we should have had a team in, and when I’ve had an opportunity to see all the data that the basketball committee’s had, I trust their judgment.”
Notes:@ Jim Bain, coordinator of officials for the conference the last 18 years, retired after Sunday’s final. The 77-year-old Bain has been involved in NCAA Division I officiating for 40 years, getting his first college assignment in 1959 with his first game matching Saint Louis and Bill Bradley-led Princeton. “In those days, centers were 6-4,” Bain said. “Now, you’ve got to have guards 6-4 just to be successful.” … Illinois State’s Osiris Eldridge, who scored 21 points in each of the last two games, was named tournament MVP and teammate Champ Oguchi also made the all-tournament team. Tourney champ Northern Iowa had two players on the team, Kwadzo Ahelegbe and Adam Koch, with Creighton’s Booker Woodfox rounding out the squad. “Osiris is a great player but we’re a team,” Northern Iowa’s Ali Farokhmanesh said. “It’s the team that does it.” … Attendance of 9,136 in the final was the lowest in four seasons, with numbers down due to the economy and the absence of Creighton and Southern Illinois, which both have large followings.
