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IIt's been a long time since Cleveland State went dancing. Back when Mr. Mister topped the charts, and Eddie Murphy was pursuing a singing career. Plus, he was still nine years from Vampire in Brooklyn. Well, some things are better left in that time. The Vikings, though, finally return to the NCAA Tournament by knocking off Butler in the Horizon League Championship game.

The popping sound you here are the dreams of at least one team on the bubble. The sphere is enduring a bit of shrinkage with Cleveland State taking the automatic bid for the Horizon League and the Top-25 ranked Butler left to be an at-large team.

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One of the thing repeated by punditry, whenever you tuned in to see Davidson and Steph Curry, was that the Wildcats were not a better team when compared to last year's squad. That has proven true most of the year. While Davidson has been a good team at times and Steph Curry is one of the best players in college basketball, Davidson is not a consistently good team. They are a bubble team in a mid-major conference. Their case was not helped by Butler beating them at home 75-63.

The game was important for both teams, to confirm and even clinch that they are an at-large worthy teams. A game that would take the pressure off of having to win their respective conference tournaments. Butler can now breathe a little easier if they do not take the Horizon Conference Tournament. Davidson, though, must win the Southern Conference to get back to the NCAA Tournament.

Butler's star guard and leading scorer, A.J. Graves, was not feeling well. It clearly affected his play, as he actually had to leave the court for a while in the first half. His play, though, only made him feel worse. Graves only scored 5 points, missed his fifth free throw of the season (out of 118) and fouled out of the game with 2:26 left in the game. Butler lost at home 68-64.

This was the Saluki's game. They dictated the pace and style. They played the game they wanted -- slow and careful -- with a tough defense that limits possessions. Not a complete shock, since Butler plays a similarly slow tempo style.

Without Graves playing well, though, the normally highly efficient Bulldog offense wasn't. They fell behind late in the first half and never was able to catch Southern Illinois.They closed a couple of times, but couldn't finish. They hit droughts of 4, 2 and 1:30 in the second half.

Butler is in no real danger of missing the NCAA Tournament, but they are likely to fall out of the top-25 with this home loss. Southern Illinois has surged to the top of the MVC.