A long drive back from Peoria

For the second straight time, five hours of driving was truly worth it to see another classic basketball game. Bradley knocked off Wichita State on senior night, and with the other results in the Valley, now has secured a spot outside of the play-in game next Thursday.

The game was very entertaining, with Bradley jumping out to a huge lead early and sustaining that through halftime. But then Wichita State caught fire from the floor and whittled the entire lead away for the Braves. In the end, two clutch three pointers and steal helped seal a 75-73 victory.

I will have a full recap up tomorrow as well some of the many pictures I took at the game.

Here's how the MVC standings look:

				Conference		Tiebreaker Pts.
			Place	Wins	Losses	Max.	Earned
Northern Iowa			1	14	3	171	123
Wichita State*			2	11	6	177	103
Illinois State*			2	11	6	177	93
Creighton			4	9	8	185	60
Bradley			4	9	8	185	69
Missouri State			6	8	9	187	59
Indiana State			6	8	9	193	57
Drake			7	7	10	193	61
Southern Ill.			9	6	11	203	48
Evansville			10	2	15	207	35

Notes: Wichita State leads the second place tiebreaker based upon playoff points; Creighton currently leads the fourth place tiebreaker as it is 1-0 v. Bradley; Missouri State leads the sixth place tiebreaker based upon a 1-0 record v. Indiana State

Obviously the stunner was Evansville knocking off nationally ranked Northern Iowa yesterday. But this had no real effect on the standings.

The I-74 rivals really strengthened their positions in the standings. Bradley cannot finish lower than 6th, as the loser of the Missouri State-Indiana State game will have 10 losses. Additionally, the Wichita State victory gives Bradley an opportunity to claim the fourth spot with a win in Omaha.

Illinois State also had a big win, making sure that Indiana State would not have a chance to catch the Redbirds in the standings. Bradley (though fans never would admit it) did the Redbirds a serious favor by beating the Shockers. Now Illinois State will likely earn that critical second seed if the the team can find a way to win at Northern Iowa.