FanHouse JoshuaBone

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:

Tonight's matchup between Butler and Southern Illinois had everything you look for in a trademarked bracket buster. There was no such marking on tonight's game, those aren't until February, but the outcome may make it hard for Southern Illinois to find their way into the NCAA tournament as an at-large team. A.J. Graves nailed a three from just inside the half-court line as time expired to give the Bulldogs a 57-55 win.

The loss drops SIU to 5-6 on the season and was incredibly frustrating. They complemented their defensive intensity with better than usual shooting, highlighted by Joshua Bone's best game of the year. Bone hit 7-of-10 from the floor, including five threes, and SIU shot a respectable 47.9% from the floor. That defensive intensity, which limited Butler to 15 field goals all night, had a downside, though. The Bulldogs went to the line 30 times and their 21 makes helped make up for their erratic shooting.

The fouls also kept Randal Falker on the bench for long stretches, another key factor in the loss. Falker had 14 points, seven rebounds and four blocked shots but wasn't around long enough to tip the game his team's way.

Southern Illinois knew they were going to have to worry about Eric Gordon on the offensive end. The freshman was scoring 27 points per game entering play in Carbondale last night and was going to make it hard for the Salukis to extend their home winning streak to 16 games. They didn't count on him making such an impact defensively, though. Gordon had three blocks and two steals to go with 24 points, all keys in Indiana's 64-51 win.

Not that the Salukis did much to help themselves on that end of the field. They shot a brutal 37.5% and missed all but one of the 14 three-pointers they attempted. Matt Shaw and Joshua Bone, the players Chris Lowery counts on to balance his offense with Randal Falker inside, were 1-of-11 from deep which helped the Salukis to their second straight defeat. It was only the fourth loss for SIU in their last 84 home games and one that damages their effort to gain in national reputation.

Beyond Gordon, Indiana got strong games from D.J. White and Jamarcus Ellis. Each forward finished with a double-double as the Hoosiers outworked the normally tireless Salukis on the boards. In the end, though, it was Gordon who made the difference once again. He became the third man to score more than 20 points against SIU in the last two years and showed that, as good as the beginning has been, the best is probably yet to come.