FanHouse MarkTurgeon

The debate about which conference is the best basketball league usually heats up in December.

But the Big 12 coaches set fire to the debate early by staking claim as the best basketball conference Tuesday, some five months before the 2009-10 season begins. So the Big East, ACC, Pac-10 and SEC will have to just lineup for second best.

"I do think it's going to be the best with what we have retuning and the things that we've done in the last few years," Texas A&M coach Mark Turgeon said during the Big 12 summer teleconference call Tuesday. "I've talked to some so-called experts out there and they think we are going to be the best league, too.

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.