In the least surprising news of the day, Creighton was picked to win the Missouri Valley Conference at the league’s media day on Monday.
The Bluejays picked up 38 of a possible 40 votes, the other two going to Illinois State, who were picked to finish second. In order, Northern Iowa, Wichita State, Evansville, Drake, Indiana State, Missouri State, Bradley and Southern Illinois round out the voting.
Seems like a pretty close match to what we at CBT on NBC had in our Valley preview. The only huge difference being the discrepancy being the placement of Bradley. Sounds like the guy who wrote that preview for NBC might be an idiot. Or not. Who knows. Though I firmly believe the Braves have way too much coming back compared to the talent of the bottom-tier teams in the league, to finish in the basement.
Doug McDermott was another non-shocker, being tabbed as the preseason player of the year by the media. Along with McDermott, Colt Ryan of Evansville, Jackie Carmichael of Illinois State, Jake Odum of Indiana State and Ben Simons of Drake were selected to the preseason all-conference team. Four players were named honorable mention, Greg Echenique of Creighton, Anthony James and Seth Tuttle of Northern Iowa and Carl Hall of Wichita State.
Tuttle is a puzzling non-pick for the all-conference. The MVC Freshman of the Year from last season fills up stat sheets and should be a focal point in Ben Jacobson’s offense. Though it’d be incredibly tough to pick which of the five players on the all-conference team to take off. Guess that’s the whole point of the honorable mention list.
Illinois State has a lot with which new coach Dan Muller can work with, including only one true freshman, which means everyone knows the system. Though someone will have to step in and fill the void left by transfer Nic Moore. Also, look out for Southern Illinois to be a better-than-average team. There was a lot of talent that was being relegated to role-player-type action behind Mamadou Seck, but now guys like Dantiel Daniels and Jeff Early can expand their games with Seck gone.
David Harten is the editor of The Backboard Chronicles. You can follow him on Twitter at @David_Harten.
