Paul Suellentrop’s Missouri Valley Conference report (Feb. 16)

Drama (sort of) in the MVC

Even after two scoring-deprived losses, Wichita State should win its third Missouri Valley Conference title in a row. The Shockers need two wins to clinch a tie and three to win it outright, with four to play.

Duty requires a mention that Illinois State is two games back and comes to Koch Arena on Feb. 27. Another loss by WSU could put the Redbirds in position to grab a piece of the title and the No. 1 seed by owning the tiebreaker for the MVC Tournament.

Drama? Probably not.

Redbirds coach Dan Muller is a long way from publicly considering his team back in the race. His team faces challenges before coming to Koch Arena. They play at Northern Iowa and play host to Southern Illinois in the season’s final weeks, both opponents who are also surging for second place.

“Until I feel like we can control our own destiny, that’s not something we’ll think about,” he said. “What we can do is continue to take care of our part of it. We haven’t talked about first, second, third, fourth, ninth, 10th.”

Wichita State lost twice as many regular-season MVC games in a week as it did in the past two seasons. That should give MVC coaches and players hope that the Shockers aren’t the unbeatable 21-0 monster of 2013-14. Last season, WSU and Northern Iowa dominated the regular season and the Panthers won the tournament after Illinois State upset the Shockers in the semifinals. Talk of a “wide-open tournament” was silly both seasons.

The Shockers remain imposing, although not as overwhelming as the two previous seasons, and the group behind them is balanced.

“I don’t think Wichita State is as vulnerable as everybody thinks they are,” SIU coach Barry Hinson said. “In the two games they got beat, they struggled to make perimeter shots. Everybody goes through that. They’re still the best team in the league.”

Five teams — WSU, Illinois State, Evansville, UNI and Southern Illinois — should go to St. Louis for the MVC Tournament with a notion they can play three good games and celebrate an automatic bid on CBS. Four of them have winning streaks of at least six games and Illinois State owns two four-game streaks.

Fast breaks

▪  Wichita State ended the MVC’s non-conference action with Monday’s win over New Mexico State. The Valley has three schools in the top 30 of non-conference strength of schedule, No. 4 Illinois State, No. 17 WSU and No. 30 Northern Iowa. Five schools ahead of WSU (No. 49) in the RPI own a better non-conference schedule strength.

▪  WSU has scored under 60 points 24 times in the past six-plus seasons and is 7-17 in those games. Northern Iowa, which defeated WSU 53-50 on Saturday, is responsible for five of those losses.

▪  With 20 games remaining until the MVC Tournament, the conference office figures that there are 1,048,576 scenarios for seeding. WSU is the only team assured of not playing on the first day. Drake and Bradley are guaranteed a bottom-four seed.

▪ Former Wichita State star Xavier McDaniel holds the MVC record with 30 double-doubles (10 or more points and rebounds) in 1984-85. Evansville’s Egidijus Mockevicius has 22 with four regular-season games remaining.

Trending up

SIU guard Anthony Beane scored 31 points against Indiana State and again against Drake last week. He made 22 of 37 shots and 8 of 15 three-pointers in the wins. Beane has six 30-point games this season.

Trending down

Indiana State guard Brenton Scott continues to score, but he hasn’t recorded an assist in his past three games. He has six turnovers in that span.

Get to know an MVC neighbor

Q: Against which MVC opponent did Indiana State’s Larry Bird score a career-high 49 points on Feb. 25, 1979?

A: Bird made 18 of 28 shots and scored all of his points in the final 33 minutes of a 109-84 win over Wichita State in his final game in the Hulman Center. The Sycamores finished the regular season 26-0 before advancing to the NCAA Tournament title game.

One to watch

Illinois State (16-11, 10-4 MVC) at Northern Iowa (16-11, 8-6), 3 p.m. Saturday (CBSSN) — Illinois State’s Justin McCloud came off the bench to make 5 of 6 threes in a 76-67 win over the Panthers on Jan. 23. That was the second win in Illinois State’s run of six in seven games. UNI is 6-0 after that defeat.

This story was originally published February 16, 2016 at 12:54 PM with the headline "Paul Suellentrop’s Missouri Valley Conference report (Feb. 16)."