PEORIA — Will there be any more Cinderella’s in Arch Madness?
The Missouri Valley Conference changed its post-season tournament script Monday in a way that could make a storybook underdog run a thing of the past, establishing a two-round bye for its top two regular-season finishers.
The Valley put in a major men’s and women’s tournament change and also moved its women’s tournament to St. Louis, the latter setting the stage for a veritable college basketball postseason gala.
The 2027 MVC postseason will see both the men’s and women’s Arch Madness tournaments operated together in the same week at Enterprise Center in St. Louis.
The change in the men’s tournament format was the headline, though, on Monday.
The tradition of including every Valley team in the conference tournament has come to an end. The top 10 finishers will go to the tournament in 2027. The 11th-place finisher will stay home.
“We’ve only taken one team out of the tournament,” MVC commissioner Jeff Jackson said. “I think it’s been since 2002 that the last-place team in the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament has won a game, on the men’s side.
“When you’re a team that is struggling and you’re finishing last in a conference like ours, you’re not exactly buying a boat load of tickets to come to St. Louis and watch that tournament.”
The Valley’s motive was to protect its top two regular-season teams come tournament time, with an eye on shaping itself as a two-bid league and higher seed placement in the NCAA Tournament – and the financial gain from it for the conference.
Think Indiana State and Belmont as regular-season Valley champions in the recent past who were upset in the tournament and left out of the NCAA postseason lineup.
A new format
The revised Valley tournament format will take the top 10 finishers.
The No. 1 and No. 2 teams for both men’s and women’s tournaments will receive a double-bye directly to the semifinals. The other eight teams will play in a first-round matchup, with No. 3 vs. No. 10, No. 4 vs. No. 9, No. 5 vs. No. 8 and No. 6 vs. No. 7.
The four winners advance to the second round. Then those two winners move on to the semifinals, feeding into the top two seeds.
“I’m not shy or bashful about the concept that we want to reward our teams who have the most success in regular-season play,” Jackson said.
Bottom line: A No. 1 or No. 2 seed in the tournament now has to play and win two games to earn an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. The other eight teams will have to play and win four to steal a bid.
“We started talking 16 months ago about the double-bye,” Jackson said. “We were very much mindful to the fact that admission to the NCAA Tournament was not an easy thing to do, especially when you are talking about multiple bids.
“But with the onset of the tournament going to 76 teams, it’s even more important when looking at opportunities for success, opportunity for financial gain, to be a 12th seed. There’s a huge difference right now between what looks like being a 12th seed to being a 13th seed, so I think that is probably what led the conversation.
“We wanted to be more purposeful in our protection of our first and second seeds. Once we got to the point where we knew we were going to protect No. 1 and No. 2, that was going to knock our tournament down to 10 teams.”
View from the Hilltop
The Bradley Braves men’s team might have benefited from this format change and an expansion in the NCAA field in recent years.
With the Valley – which was the ninth-ranked conference in D1 basketball last season – concentrating now on emerging as a two-bid league, the Braves could make a case that at least two of their teams from a run of four consecutive NIT appearances could have made the NCAA field in a 76-team format.
“Honestly, every format, every tournament is a challenge,” Bradley head coach Brian Wardle said. “It’s hard. Our league prioritized certain things now. I don’t think anyone can make judgments right now and I’m not going to rush to judgment.
“It definitely rewards the regular-season top teams. Time will tell. Let it play out.”
Wardle coached at Green Bay in the Horizon League, which long ago had a double-bye format for its top two teams in the league postseason tournament.
He notes most other conferences do not take all of their respective teams into the postseason tournament field, either. And the West Coast Conference, with Gonzaga and St. Mary’s at No. 1 and No. 2, is another conference that used the double-bye system last spring to protect its two top teams.
In the WCC, the bottom four teams would have had to play and win six games to earn its automatic bid, while Gonzaga and St. Mary’s faced only two.
Both made the NCAA field, Gonzaga as a No. 3 seed, St. Mary’s as a No. 7.
“When I was at Green Bay we didn’t play for 10 days with that double-bye and got beat,” Wardle said. “It’s always a challenge no matter what the format. You have to win games.
“It’s a whole new landscape with NIL and the portal. We just don’t know how all this is going to look until we’re 3-4 years down the road.”
A dynamic duo
Bringing the women’s tournament from Iowa to St. Louis became feasible once the Valley made the decision to reduce its postseason tournament field to 10 teams.
The league has a five-day window at Enterprise Center in St. Louis in which to stage its tournament. A pair of 10-team tournaments fits that window.
There will be 18 games between the combined tournaments, and the league plans to sell an all-access ticket package that covers all those games.
The women’s four first-round games will be on tournament Wednesday. The men’s four first-round games will follow on tournament Thursday. Then second-round games for both tournaments will fall on tournament Friday, followed by semifinals on Saturday and championship games on Sunday.
Operating both tournaments in the same week at the same site is a substantial cost savings for the league, something that is critical for schools trying to fund teams in multiple men’s and women’s sports programs.
“We’re excited about where we’re headed, what we’re doing and why,” Jackson said. “We’re going to have men’s basketball fans who are going to become women’s basketball fans, and women’s basketball fans who are going to become men’s basketball fans.
“I think both of our champions will get a chance to feed off each other and Arch Madness will grow and prosper.”
Stitching it all together
Jackson said the Valley’s broadcast commitment with CBS will continue with Arch Madness.
He says the men’s basketball semifinals will tip on the network at 2:30 p.m. and 5 p.m. on tournament Saturday.
The women’s semifinals will be worked around those, with one at 11:30 a.m. and the other tipping in the evening.
Initial plans are for the men’s title game to play at 11 a.m. on CBS on tournament Sunday, after which the building will be cleared, and then the women’s championship will follow at 4 p.m.
“I think the 1 and 2 protection (issue) started it,” Jackson said. “But I think … the celebration of basketball here in St. Louis for a week, I think it’s going to be really hard to find another week in college basketball that’s going to rival what we have a chance to accomplish next year in St. Louis.”
The Braves could have a great story line in St. Louis next spring with Wardle coaching the Braves men, while his daughter, Mya, plays for the BU women’s team.
“I’m excited to see where it goes,” Wardle said. “All in one city, one week. It might be more efficient to have it all in one place. I get to see my daughter play, and she grew up watching that tournament down there and now she gets to play on that floor. It’s going to be great.”
Dave Eminian is the Journal Star senior writer and sports columnist, and covers Bradley men’s basketball, the Rivermen and Chiefs. He writes the Cleve In The Eve sports column for pjstar.com. He can be reached at deminian@pjstar.com. Follow him on X.com @icetimecleve.
This article originally appeared on Journal Star: Why the MVC made changes for its college basketball tournaments
Reporting by Dave Eminian, Peoria Journal Star / Journal Star
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By Dave Eminian, Peoria Journal Star | USA TODAY Network
