NCAA Basketball creighton Bluejays

The flagbearer of the Missouri Valley Conference is going to have to wait a week to find out if that ending in the MVC Tournament costs them dearly. The Bluejays have played well this season and had a top-40 RPI. Yet because they only had two games against teams in the top-100 RPI (both wins), they are viewed as not being tested sufficiently.

Creighton has only given critics fuel in just a couple days. They blew a double-digit lead on Friday against Wichita State, needing a last second miracle shot tosend them into the semi-finals of the MVC Tournament. That should have been enough, but then the Jays were completely blown away by Illinois State. They never showed up for the game.

Now, the only certainty is that Creighton has helped to make the bubble that much more crowded.

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Update 2/2/09: The 2009 BracketBusters matchups have been announced.
The Bracket Busters is a series that began in 2003 and was designed to pit mid-majors in inter-conference battles late in the regular season. With ESPN tied in, it brings national TV audiences to places they may normally not go.

It helps these teams immensely by getting them exposure, pumping up their RPI numbers and answers some of those questions about the strength of these mid-major conferences.

102 teams were named to be in this year's event ... which will take place on February 20-21.

The marquee name will be Davidson College, home of Stephen Curry and a Wildcats team that were a shot away from getting to the Final Four.

Other big time mid-majors include Butler, Drake, San Diego, Nevada, St. Mary's, Bucknell and George Mason.

Matchups will be set on February 9th. After the jump are the teams that are participating.

There seems to be a larger than usual pool of teams across the college basketball landscape from the non-power conferences that could make their own case for an at-large bid. These are some of the conferences that have teams that could pop other teams bubbles if they don't win their conference tournament. Part 1 and Part 3.

Today has the Sun Belt, Atlantic Sun and Patriot League getting their conference tournaments started. Not as much attention will be paid to the Atlantic Sun and the Patriot League, but South Alabama in the Sun Belt will be watched closely.

Mid-major basketball fans are frothing at the bit for this weekend's Bracket Buster bonanza. A slew of games pitting the best teams from all over the country, highlighted by Drake and Butler hooking up in Indianapolis. That game should be a doozy but a good part of the fun of this weekend is usually seeing which teams might step up and get at-large bids to the NCAA Tournament. I say usually because after this week it's hard to find many teams with chances that look good.

Sure, Drake would get a bid if they suffer an upset in the MVC tourney but there's no way another team from that conference is dancing without an automatic invite. Creighton lost twice this week, including a 87-59 thrashing at Bradley's hands on Saturday. Illinois State, meanwhile, fell at Indiana State. The Redbirds will be a popular choice in the 2008-09 preseason, see sophomore Osiris Eldridge's 34 points in the loss, but they won't factor in this year's postseason. And this year's favorite, Southern Illinois, followed up their win against Drake with their first road win at Wichita State. Too little, too late unless you're looking for the likeliest spoiler in the conference tournament.

It was tough all over the Midwest.

If, for some reason, it hasn't crossed your radar screen just yet, the Drake Bulldogs are the best story of the 2007-08 basketball season. They haven't played in the NCAA Tournament since 1971 but are a six-point road loss at St. Mary's away from an undefeated season. They're 11-0 in the Missouri Valley and were led to their latest win by their walk-on point guard Adam Emmenecker, who scored 12 points in his career high high school performance.

Emmenecker had 20, a college career best, and added eight assists yesterday to lead his squad to a comeback win over Indiana State. The Sycamores held a five-point halftime edge but the Bulldogs got back in the game when Emmenecker set up threes on three consecutive possessions at the start of the final 20 minutes. One by Josh Young and two by Leonard Houston was all the Bulldogs needed to get on track for another win. Drake's return to the tournament is all but assured, will they be joined by another conference team, though?

Illinois State had the inside track on the second spot before a 79-73 loss to Drake started them on a three loss in four game stretch. All the losses were roadies but still diminished the luster of another MVC team looking to end a long postseason drought. They recovered to win at Missouri State yesterday, though, and if they can beat Drake in Normal on Tuesday, they'll have restored their place near the front of the at-large line.

Creighton's 9-1 start was quickly forgotten when they opened league play with consecutive losses to Illinois State and Indiana State. It fell even further into history as the Redbirds and Drake kept winning games to pull clear of the rest of the league. Somewhere in the darkness, though, the Bluejays found their way. They beat Northern Iowa 68-59 last night for their fourth straight win.

While none of those wins have come against Illinois State, Drake or Southern Illinois, they can't be discounted. Three of them have come on the road, the Jays have played four of six MVC games away from Omaha, which boosts both their chances in the second half. They'll play seven of the final 12 league games in their building, which should serve them well. As the grind of the nation's toughest defensive conference takes its toll, Creighton can sit home and pick teams off and climb back to the top of the league heap.

That's not a given. Creighton's penchant for turnovers, highest rate in the league, needs to be addressed. They are sound everywhere else, though, and last night's 10-of-24 from three reminds us that all those Jays can shoot the ball. They're very deep, 11 guys average 10 or more minutes, and built well for the long road ahead of them.

I think it's safe to say that the Missouri Valley Conference season isn't playing out as predicted. Southern Illinois , Bradley and Creighton got most of the preseason talk and even though conventional wisdom held that it would be hard to find a second tournament-worthy team after the Salukis, people assumed that there would be quite a fight between those teams.

Reality has proven to be quite different. If SIU doesn't win the tourney, they ain't playing in the postseason, Bradley is 0-3 in conference after losing to Wichita State, which only improved to 1-2. Creighton has the same lackluster mark after squeezing past Missouri State 50-49 yesterday and the teams to watch are Drake, Indiana State and Illinois State.

Illinois State struck the biggest blow yesterday by sending Southern Illinois to another loss, 56-47 at Redbird Arena. Levi Dyer and Osiris Eldridge, two All-MVC candidates who come off the bench for Tim Jankovich, combined to hit seven three-pointers and bury the Salukis. The 'Birds led 31-13 at the half as SIU turned in their customary nightmarish offensive performance. Joshua Bone missed all eight of his shots, the team was 13-of-50 overall and they turned the ball over 21 times in a stomach-turning and all too common display of ineptitude.

The MVC took a hit on Friday night when A.J. Graves' three gave Butler a win in Carbondale but the conference does not exist because of Southern Illinois alone. While SIU's struggles may get attention, the MVC still has a better RPI than any other league that doesn't play in BCS games. That should buoy their hopes of multiple bids come March but, if the first night of conference play is any indication, they may be too closely matched for any teams to stand out. No home teams won on game night one.

The biggest win came in Omaha where Illinois State routed Creighton. The Bluejays felt like a conference favorite but the Redbirds flew much higher in the 80-67 win. They shot 51.9%, had five players in double figures led by Levi Dyer. The backup center hit five threes and finished with 20 points and looks like he's past the off-court troubles that led to his benching. Arrested for DUI, Dyer has worked his way back into good graces and combines with Osiris Eldridge and Anthony Slack to give ISU a deep, balanced attack.

Drake is 10-1 after holding off Wichita State 62-54. The difference came from three, where Drake hit 8-of-21 but the Shockers managed to knock down only three in the same amount of tries. They also missed 15-of-24 free throw attempts in a home loss that offered much doubt about their chances in conference this season.

Northern Iowa held Bradley to nine first-half points and cruised to a 59-48 win. In Evansville, Indiana State got 22 points from Gabriel Moore and rolled to a 70-56 win against the Purple Aces.

With Christmas in the offing, gifts are on my mind. And when you're talking about college basketball, the most sought after gift is an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament. Every conference gets its representation but the elusive multiple bid is why teams go out and play all comers in the first two months of the season. It's still too early to know anything for sure but with the nonconference season winding down, I thought we'd take a look at Conference RPI and see who is looking like they're being nice enough for Santa to remember them come March.

Missouri Valley (Conference Rank: 7) - The early season buzz is that the MVC will struggle to get a second team into the tournament but that seems a bit capricious. Creighton has opened the season very strong and Drake sits at 40th overall in RPI but the early struggles of Southern Illinois has lowered expectations for the conference. They had an impressive win against Western Kentucky over the weekend and play Butler in a massive game on Friday. SIU is the only team with the nonconference strength of schedule that raises eyebrows, though. The MVC's quest for a second bid will have a lot to do with how well they play in conference.

If Dana Altman is to be taken at his word (and I'd understand if Arkansas fans don't want to), then the former Creighton, then Arkansas, then Creighton again head coach is a pretty self-aware and stand-up kind of guy.

He took the job at Arkansas, then backed away from it, and went back to Creighton, where they were more than happy to have him back. There are two ways to look at Altman's actions here:

1) He jumped at the money and the higher-profile job, then went back on his word, lying to the Arkansas people, damaging their program (though Arkansas' original decision to fire Stan Heath without a realistic replacement in mind, you could argue, did way more damage) and dragging his own name through the mud.

Or, 2) Dana Altman realized that he made a mistake by valuing money and a higher-profile job over feeling appreciated and loved at Creighton. He reconsidered uprooting his family and then was willing to risk his own reputation and take the inevitable media abuse by admitting his mistake and attempting to fix it.

If you believe Altman (and I see no reason not to, but that's just a general "benefit of the doubt" type of thing, not any concrete evidence I have that Dana Altman is truly a stand-up guy), then it's #2 that's true. I think that's something to be commended, not scorned.

In a moment of weakness, in a desire to sate his own ego, he jumped at a "better" job. But he looked back to Creighton, where he spent 13 years building a more-than-respectable program, he looked at moving his family, he looked at what his heart and his sense of loyalty told him. And with all of that, he decided to own up to a mistake and go back to Creighton, where he knows he has to rebuild some relationships.

That's commendable. Every program should be as lucky as Creighton, to have a coach with that kind of loyalty and commitment.