For the second straight year, the Missouri Valley Conference is a disgruntled one-bid NCAA tournament league, with only a No. 12 seed as its standard bearer.
Commissioner Doug Elgin expects the conference to be stronger in 2010, given there were only 15 senior starters among the 10 teams this past season. But he’s not certain whether it’ll make a difference with an NCAA selection committee that has focused on BCS conferences in recent years.
“I was very disappointed at the fact Creighton was not selected,” Elgin said in a teleconference Sunday night. “I think the message is pretty clear in that philosophically the last couple of years favor teams with middle-of-the-pack records and numbers from so-called power conferences.”
Before last year, the Valley sent multiple schools to the NCAA tournament for nine consecutive years and peaked at four entries in 2006. Southern Illinois had six straight bids from 2002-07.
Now, apparently, the Valley is just another mid-major after getting a single bid in back-to-back years for the first time since 1997-98.
In 2006, the mid-majors combined for 12 at-large bids. This year, only four.
“If we ever think we’ve reached a point in our evolution that we can take things for granted, we’re sadly mistaken,” Elgin said. “Each year is new, each year you have to prove yourself, and that’s the way it should be.”
Northern Iowa (23-10) got the conference’s automatic bid after winning the conference tournament as the top seed. The Panthers, in the field for the fourth time in six years, are the 12th seed in the West Regional and play fifth seed Purdue on Thursday.
The seeding is the lowest for the conference tournament champion since Northern Iowa won in 2004 and got a No. 14. seed.
Creighton (26-7) tied Northern Iowa for the regular season title and has an RPI of 39, second-lowest among schools left out of the 65-team field. The Bluejays had won 11 in a row before getting blown out 73-49 by Illinois State in the semifinals of the conference tournament.
Other numbers the school could tout: a 9-5 record against the RPI top 100 and an 8-4 road record.
Creighton wasn’t the only school snubbed, with five boasting 26 or more wins not qualifying. According to the conference, the Bluejays are the first 26-win team with a top 40 RPI from a top 10 league left out, and are one of only three teams since 1995 that have finished with 10 wins in the last 11 games or better and not made it.
Elgin believes the two-year down cycle is over, at least in terms of talent. Scheduling enough quality nonconference games will remain a constant challenge, although he remains dead-set against schools going on the road “for a payday.”
The Valley has already taken one step to strengthen schedules, beginning a four-year Mountain West Challenge next season. The Mountain West had two bids this year, BYU and Utah.
“There’s no doubt our administrators and coaches understand what we’re up against in trying to fight our way into the tournament,” Elgin said. “They will respond accordingly.”
