MVC's depth could be downfall on Selection Sunday

	Creighton's Nate Funk leads the MVC in scoring with 17.4 points per game. Manny Millan/SI
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Also in this column:
• Teams to keep an eye on
• My complete bracket projection

If you're a college basketball junkie, the best thing about February is it means March is right around the corner. Each Tuesday between now and the end of the regular season, I'll be spotlighting certain teams, conferences and other storylines to keep an eye on -- as well as updating my bracket projection -- as we gear up for Selection Sunday.

First up, we turn our attention to the upstart conference that inadvertently became the story of last year's Selection Sunday -- the Missouri Valley. As you well recall, the league's record four NCAA tournament bids drew the ire of CBS taking heads Jim Nantz and Billy Packer, who outwardly scoffed at the selection committee's judgment on the air -- then ate their words a week later when two of those teams, Wichita State and Bradley, advanced to the Sweet 16.

Valley teams followed up on that achievement by racking up a slew of impressive non-conference victories -- Missouri State over Wisconsin; Wichita State over LSU and Syracuse; Southern Illinois over Virginia Tech; Indiana State over Butler and Purdue -- to start this season. The conference went 15-12 against the six "BCS" conferences and 82-27 overall. The Valley, which returned 38 of 50 starters league-wide from last season, currently ranks fifth nationally in conference RPI, ahead of the Big 12 and Big East.

"The league is better top to bottom than it was last year," says Northern Iowa coach Ben Jacobson.

Unfortunately for Jacobson and his Valley cohorts, that may not prove to be such a good thing.

A year ago, the league finished with six teams in the top 50 of the RPI (NCAA teams Wichita State, Bradley, Southern Illinois and Northern Iowa and NIT participants Missouri State and Creighton), all of which were within three games of each other in the conference standings. There was a steep drop-off, however, from the sixth-place team Bradley, at 20-10 and 11-7 in the conference, to the rest of the pack. Seventh-place Drake went 12-19, 5-13 in the MVC.

This year, as Jacobson notes, "the teams that are right now in seventh, eighth, ninth and 10th are a lot better than the teams that were 7-10 last year or the year before." Which means the teams in the bottom half are fully capable of beating the teams in the top half, and they've done just that, saddling some of the league's potential NCAA bubble teams with so-called "bad" losses. For example, Evansville, 5-8 in the conference, beat co-leader Southern Illinois (10-3) and Missouri State (8-5); Indiana State (4-8) beat co-leader Creighton (10-3) and last-place Drake (3-10) beat Northern Iowa (8-5).

Just how deep is this league? That same Drake team beat both Iowa and Iowa State in December.

Such parity, however, could have a negative effect on the Valley come selection time. In my first bracket below, the league placed just three teams (Southern Illinois, Creighton and Missouri State), one less than last year. And of those, only the 19-5 Salukis, with a No. 9 RPI ranking and three Top-50 wins, appear to be a lock. Creighton, No. 25 in the RPI, had a rocky non-conference slate, beating No. 51 Xavier but losing to No. 93 Hawaii, No. 94 Nebraska and No. 127 Fresno State. No. 30 Missouri State had a tremendous win over No. 4 Wisconsin, but its next-best victories to date have been a sweep of No. 48 Bradley.