The Missouri Valley Conference Arch Madness is set to tip-off Thursday March 4 in St. Louis.
The 31st annual Arch Madness bracket is set for the Missouri Valley Conference (MVC) championships beginning Thurs March 4 at the Enterprise Centre in St. Louis, MO.
Loyola-Chicago (21-4, 16-2 MVC) will be the State Farm MVC Tournament No.1 seed after earning the league’s regular-season title for the third time in the past four seasons. The Ramblers of course made their magical run to the Final Four of the NCAA tournament back in 2018.
The Drake Bulldogs will be the No.2 seed following an impressive regular season (24-3, 15-3 MVC) that saw make the AP Top 25. Drake split the regular-season series with Loyola-Chicago with one win each but they enter Arch Madness without their leading scorer Shanquan Hemphill who broke his foot on Feb 10.
Here is how the rest of the Arch Madness bracket shapes up:
Predictions for the winner: This is basically a coin flip between Drake and Loyola-Chicago. Despite the loss of Hemphill to injury, I think Drake has shown enough guts and resiliency all season to pull this out. Loyola-Chicago should still get an at-large bid win or lose but it’s not certain Drake has that luxury. Always go with the more desperate team in March.
Long shot possibility: Southern Illinois (11-13, 5-13 MVC) No.9 seed. This is a very young team that is just starting to come together with the emergence of freshman big man Kyler Filewich. They played Loyola-Chicago very closely twice this past week including pushing them to OT. They may have some magic in them for March.
