FanHouse Gabe Moore

I think it's safe to say that the Missouri Valley Conference season isn't playing out as predicted. Southern Illinois , Bradley and Creighton got most of the preseason talk and even though conventional wisdom held that it would be hard to find a second tournament-worthy team after the Salukis, people assumed that there would be quite a fight between those teams.

Reality has proven to be quite different. If SIU doesn't win the tourney, they ain't playing in the postseason, Bradley is 0-3 in conference after losing to Wichita State, which only improved to 1-2. Creighton has the same lackluster mark after squeezing past Missouri State 50-49 yesterday and the teams to watch are Drake, Indiana State and Illinois State.

Illinois State struck the biggest blow yesterday by sending Southern Illinois to another loss, 56-47 at Redbird Arena. Levi Dyer and Osiris Eldridge, two All-MVC candidates who come off the bench for Tim Jankovich, combined to hit seven three-pointers and bury the Salukis. The 'Birds led 31-13 at the half as SIU turned in their customary nightmarish offensive performance. Joshua Bone missed all eight of his shots, the team was 13-of-50 overall and they turned the ball over 21 times in a stomach-turning and all too common display of ineptitude.

By playing the ninth hardest nonconference schedule in the country, Southern Illinois gave themselves a convenient excuse for starting the season 5-6. The reasoning was that losses to Indiana, Saint Mary's and Butler would steel them for MVC play where they would blow past less seasoned competition. It's not working out that way.

They needed everything they had to outlast Missouri State in the conference opener and then lost 61-51 at Drake last night. The loss dropped the Salukis to 1-4 on the road, they won 10 such games last season, and drops them to 1-1 in the MVC. The loss was a reversion to poor form for SIU. Joshua Bone, who finally started hitting some shot in the last two, was 2-for-10 and they shot 39% as a team. They also missed 7-of-13 free throws while their physical defense sent the Bulldogs to the line 30 times.

Josh Young led the way for 2-0 Drake with 24 points. Young spurred the winning rally in the second half when, up 47-43, he scored five points to open an 11-2 run. They're 11-1 overall with their lone blemish a road loss at Saint Mary's and could be poised for a big conference run.

As for SIU, it's hard to predict a complete turnaround at this point. They'd need to win 14 of their remaining 16 to reach 20 wins, so at-large bids are a fantasy, and they'll need to find some consistent backcourt play to make an honest challenge at the MVC crown.

Elsewhere on the mid major hardcourts: