Missouri Valley conference tournament preview

This is part 7 of a 32-part series.

Standings:
Loyola(Chi) 12-6
Drake 12-6
Southern Illinois 10-8
Missouri St 10-8
Bradley 9-9
Northern Iowa 9-9
Illinois St 9-9
Indiana St 7-11
Valparaiso 7-11
Evansville 5-13

Format:
Thursday March 7 to Sunday March 10.  Traditional format, neutral site in St Louis.  The way conference tournaments oughta be.

The matchups:
1) Loyola(Chi) vs. 8/9) Indiana St/Valparaiso
4) Missouri St vs. 5) Bradley
3) Southern Illinois vs. 6) Northern Iowa
2) Drake vs. 7/10) Illinois St/Evansville

The stakes:
A catastrophic year for the conference.  All the way down to 14th in CNET, which is a historically bad mark for the conference.  Everyone is outside the top 125 in NET.  (Drake at least posted a RPI of 66, but that's a meaningless number this year)

For a conference which traditionally at least has its conference champ sniffing around the bubble...they were nowhere close this year.  Everyone lost at least 6 times in conference, and they were terrible OOC anyways.  All this means a likely spot on the 14 line for the winner here.  It's tough, but not impossible, for the champ to fall to the 15 line, but there's usually enough attrition in other tourneys that the winner of this one should bump up to a 14.

I've been keeping Loyola on the 14 line; I predict that's a human element situation, where the resume says 15 seed but humans say 14 seed because reasons.

Drake has no shot at a NIT at-large bid.