MVC

Wide Open?

ST. LOUIS -- After helping Creighton to its first regular-season crown since 2002, Booker Woodfox has been named the 2009 Larry Bird MVC Player of the Year.  The senior sharpshooting guard is one of the best shooters in the country and leads the league in three-point accuracy (50.9) and three-pointers made (83).  His 15.9 scoring average leads Creighton and ranks second in The Valley.

Woodfox has helped the Bluejays to a 25-6 overall mark and 14-4 conference record as Creighton earned the tournament's No.

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).

Much remains to be determined as the final week of the Missouri Valley Conference season begins Tuesday with three league contests.  Three teams (Creighton, Illinois State and UNI) all enter the final two games with a chance of claiming the league's regular-season crown and No. 1 tournament seed.  Opening-round games of the State Farm MVC Tournament begin Thursday, March 5.

Three league teams still have a shot at the league's regular-season title.  UNI (12-3), Creighton (11-4), and Illinois State (10-5) are the only schools mathematically alive for a regular-season crown and No. 1 tournament seed.  Notes on the leaders ....

Clip of the Day

 

Thanks to the genius of YouTube, the world has access to thousands of great college basketball videos to keep us busy every second of every day.  We'll be featuring daily movies to whet your college basketball appetite. Even if you've seen them before, some clips are just too good not to watch again and again.

 

The Valley will wind out the pre-Christmas non-league slate in the next nine days with 21 non-MVC games.  Thirteen of those are at home, where the league is 41-10 this season.   Two games this week are featured on the ESPN family of networks, including Evansville at North Carolina on Thursday (ESPN) and Iowa at Drake (ESPNU) on Saturday.