2025-26 Around The Valley

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Hank you say?

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Dear Student Reporter at The Egyptian,

It's ok to say, "The top five teams get a first round bye."
 
jturner38 said:
dailyegyptian.com

Missouri Valley Conference settles on new basketball postseason bracket

The Missouri Valley Conference is left with only 11 teams this season, following Missouri State University’s official departure on July 1. That meant the conference had to change the men’s and women’s basketball postseason tournaments for the second time in four years. According to an email...
dailyegyptian.com dailyegyptian.com
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This was the right move for the conference. There is an argument to reward the top 1-2 seeds with a double bye (not going to look into how you would do that) but Arch Madness is a special conference tournament because there is always 5+ teams that could legitimately win it; and fanbases that believe it as well. The fans are what make it special and if the bracket that only allows 1-2 teams (I'm looking at you WCC) to have a shot, not a lot of fans from around the league are going to make the migration.
 
jturner38 said:
This is some lazy 💩 in my opinion. Might as well not even do a poll.
https://twitter.com/x/status/1972797622579778021
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Kind of disappointing to see what the MVC has been going through. They’ve obviously been going through financial hardship for the last 5ish years. I understand but still sucks to get a diminished all around product. The media day being a zoom call plus the lack of a decent social media presence has been sad to see. I’m going to guess budget cuts and lack of vision is the culprit.
 

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dino said:
Kind of disappointing to see what the MVC has been going through. They’ve obviously been going through financial hardship for the last 5ish years. I understand but still sucks to get a diminished all around product. The media day being a zoom call plus the lack of a decent social media presence has been sad to see. I’m going to guess budget cuts and lack of vision is the culprit.
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I understand the sentiment, it’s important for the MVC to do the little things right. But with the way the college landscape is I’m fine with the preseason media day being on zoom. Every team is basically a bunch of unknown players, not sure of the value of going to STL with a bunch of unknowns and talking them about those unknowns.

I think you have to pivot with the current state of athletics and I’m hoping the MVC is pivoting correctly
 
Does anyone know what the current vision is for the MVC? Do they have one? Serious question. I have no idea...
 
treeman said:
I understand the sentiment, it’s important for the MVC to do the little things right. But with the way the college landscape is I’m fine with the preseason media day being on zoom. Every team is basically a bunch of unknown players, not sure of the value of going to STL with a bunch of unknowns and talking them about those unknowns.

I think you have to pivot with the current state of athletics and I’m hoping the MVC is pivoting correctly
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I’m not even mad about it. I feel like it used to be an event where there was hype and now you forget about media day until it’s actually happening. Probably save a lot of money by zooming with Jeff Goodman and I’m sure that’s what it comes down to.
 
dino said:
I’m not even mad about it. I feel like it used to be an event where there was hype and now you forget about media day until it’s actually happening. Probably save a lot of money by zooming with Jeff Goodman and I’m sure that’s what it comes down to.
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I can’t remember which interview it was but the host said something similar. He goes “the offseason isn’t as fun as it used to be. I used to know every team, who they had coming back, who they lost, who I thought would step up from a role guy to a starter, etc. now it’s just a bunch of players I’ve never heard of and really have no clue how it’ll go.”

I think this sentiment is a partial reason why the preseason media day has been downgraded and it’s not a huge deal
 

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In case anybody wants to get an early headstart on basketball and check out on how our competition looks like Bradley plays exhibition game this Saturday at 6pm on ESPN+ against Green Bay. Drake plays Wichita State same day as well but I'm pretty sure this won't be televised and it's been reported this is more of a scrimmage than an exhibition.
 
I know it’s because there just aren’t that many returning players in the Valley. But is anyone else getting sick of the ILSU hype? Pedon is a career sub .500 coach. Never has had a winning season in the valley (25-37), is 1-3 at Arch madness. It just wild how not only are they getting hype for being the class of the Valley but also one of the best mids in the country.

I understand Walker and Kinsinger are very good and marketable players but literally all they have done with Pedon is sneak by Incarnate word, Presbyterian, and Cleveland State to get to 20 wins and win a championship.
 
treeman said:
I know it’s because there just aren’t that many returning players in the Valley. But is anyone else getting sick of the ILSU hype? Pedon is a career sub .500 coach. Never has had a winning season in the valley (25-37), is 1-3 at Arch madness. It just wild how not only are they getting hype for being the class of the Valley but also one of the best mids in the country.

I understand Walker and Kinsinger are very good and marketable players but literally all they have done with Pedon is sneak by Incarnate word, Presbyterian, and Cleveland State to get to 20 wins and win a championship.
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No, I’m tired of the Murray State hype. They got to prove it to me. For Pedon though how many of his teams were actually contenders though. Doesn’t really matter who they beat they won the championship and got momentum going into this season. That’s on them to capitalize. Will they, only time will tell.
 

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treeman said:
I know it’s because there just aren’t that many returning players in the Valley. But is anyone else getting sick of the ILSU hype?
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Not tired of the ILSU hype. If we had Walker and Kinziger (and others) returning, as they do, we'd expect to be a fave to win the Valley too.
treeman said:
but literally all they have done with Pedon is sneak by Incarnate word, Presbyterian, and Cleveland State to get to 20 wins and win a championship.
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Don't forget Kinziger single-handedly defeating us when we were ranked and taking away our At-Large bid.

With all that being said, I actually think Northern Iowa has the better team, they are my pick for the Valley (preseason-wise).
 
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TreeTop said:
Not tired of the ILSU hype. If we had Walker and Kinsinger (and others) returning, as they do, we'd expect to be a fave to win the Valley too.

Don't forget Kinsinger single-handedly defeating us when we were ranked and taking away our At-Large bid.

With all that being said, I actually think Northern Iowa has the better team, they are my pick for the Valley (preseason-wise).
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Just when I had finally let that go.....you have to bring it back......LOL
 
Fair enough, I guess I’m not really arguing why they are picked to win the valley (they should be or at least top 2) but it just seems like they are way overhyped nationally, especially with what they have done the last 2-3 years.

Part of it is some bias as I really can’t stand ILSU. Always seemed like an entitled fanbase, program, school for not really doing anything to back it up. Just seems like they are having the championship parade already. I’d rather see any team in the valley win besides them at this point.
 
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