Southern Illinois

ST. LOUIS, Mo. -- The Northern Iowa men's basketball team has been picked to finish first in the Missouri Valley Conference, according to the preseason poll announced today during the league's annual Basketball Media Day.

Northern Iowa, which returns all five starters after sharing the regular-season title with Creighton last year, earned 38 of 39 first-place votes in the survey of league coaches, beat writers, sports information directors and play-by-play men.

ST.

Overall Rank: #117

Conference Rank: #6 Missouri Valley Conference

Wide Open?

ST. LOUIS -- For the fourth-straight year, the State Farm MVC Tournament will have a different top seed. Northern Iowa, which shared the regular-season title with Creighton, earned the No. 1 MVC Tournament seed for the first time in school history. The Panthers, picked sixth in the league's pre-season poll, finished with a regular-season record of 20-10 and 14-4 in league play, and held the tiebreaker over co-champion Creighton (25-6, 14-4).

Southern Illinois senior guard Bryan Mullins will be out indefinitely with a stress fracture in his right foot, head coach Chris Lowery announced Tuesday.

Mullins, who has missed only two games in his career to date, leads the Missouri Valley Conference in assists and recently became just the second player in league history to surpass 500 career assists and 250 career steals.

Last season, Mullins missed the postseason NIT games against Oklahoma State and Arizona State, due to a stress fracture in his left leg. He spent much of the off-season rehabilitating the injury.

Big Ten (Better Than Expected)

Butler (Ranked in the Top 25)

Minnesota (Unbeaten)

SEC (Arguably 8th or 9th Best Conference)

Southern Illinois (Bad. Only 5-7)

Other? (Discuss it Below)