Valley Boys

When he strolled into the Applebee's in Cedar Falls, Iowa, on a recent blustery February evening, Northern Iowa coach Greg McDermott was greeted by hearty applause from the 40 or so patrons at the bar. A little more than an hour earlier, McDermott's Panthers had pulled away in the final minutes to beat Wichita State 68-56 at the nearby UNI-Dome and remain in a tie for first place atop the Missouri Valley Conference. The room fell silent a short time later as highlights from the game appeared on TV, with a fresh burst of applause coming at the report's conclusion. McDermott, 41, a former Panthers player who returned to coach his alma mater in 2001, got up and walked from table to table chatting up friends before settling down with his assistant coaches for a postgame meal. "We've been doing this after every home game for the last three years," he says. Can you imagine Mike Krzyzewski working the dinner crowd at his local Applebee's? � Welcome to the Missouri Valley, a conference whose down-home charm belies the strength of its teams. In college hoops' modern landscape, in which the six BCS football conferences (the ACC, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-10 and SEC) monopolize the basketball airwaves as well, the Valley is classified as a "mid-major" league, but mounting evidence suggests the conference is outgrowing Cinderella's slipper. The 99-year-old league--the former stomping ground of Larry Bird ( Indiana State), Walt Frazier (Southern Illinois) and Oscar Robertson ( Cincinnati, a member from 1957 to '70)--was ranked sixth in the NCAA's Ratings Percentage Index (RPI) through Sunday, ahead of the Pac-10. The only conference with more teams in the RPI's top 30 than the Missouri Valley's five--Northern Iowa (No. 17), Creighton (30), Wichita State (22), Southern Illinois (24) and Missouri State (26)--was the Big East, and hopes are high in the Valley that the league could send an MVC-record four teams to the NCAA tournament. "There's nothing mid-major about the Valley," says Northern Iowa athletic director Rick Hartzell. "The top teams in this league could play anywhere in the country."

Several Missouri Valley teams did just that in December. Indiana State knocked off Indiana, Northern Iowa topped Iowa and LSU, and Creighton beat Nebraska by 26. "The only difference between our league and those others," says Wichita State coach Mark Turgeon, "is the height of the players [chart, page 50]. In terms of basketball skill, we're on par with any of them." The Valley's impressive nonconference run was a prelude to one of the tightest league-title races in the country: Northern Iowa, Creighton, Wichita State and Southern Illinois were tied with 11-4 league records at week's end. "We don't have a Texas that's mowing people down," says Creighton coach Dana Altman. "We just have five really good teams."

Fans across the country will be able to judge for themselves this Saturday, when five MVC teams will play Bracket Buster games on ESPN or ESPN2. On March 5, CBS will air the league's tournament championship game, the Valley's first non- NCAA-tournament network appearance since 1989. "We're finally being recognized as a conference at the highest level," says Doug Elgin, the league's commissioner of 18 years. "It's been validation."

It's also been quite a transformation for the league. As recently as three years ago, it was ranked 14th in the RPI. Until this season the Missouri Valley was largely a two-team show: Creighton, which has been to the NCAA tournament six of the past seven years, and Southern Illinois, which got to the Sweet 16 in 2002 and has won four straight conference titles.

Creighton is the league's crown jewel. It boasts an NBA-caliber arena, the Qwest Center Omaha, where the Bluejays average 14,387 fans. Southern Illinois, meanwhile, hasn't missed a beat under new coach Chris Lowery, a 33-year-old former Saluki who has maintained the program's tradition of stifling defense. (SIU ranks among the nation's best in scoring defense, allowing just 56.7 points a game.)

The team that has raised the league's profile most dramatically this season, however, is its unlikeliest powerhouse. The season before McDermott was hired away from Division II North Dakota State, the Panthers went 7-24 and averaged just 2,537 fans at the cavernous UNI-Dome. "It was like a graveyard," said Hartzell.

One of McDermott's first recruiting targets was a lanky guard from Sioux City, Iowa. Despite having averaged nearly 22 points for a team that won a state championship, Ben Jacobson wasn't highly sought by recruiters. "He was a scrawny kid," says McDermott of his then 6'3", 175-pound recruit, "but he had a knack for making big shots." Jacobson, who has since gained 30 pounds, now leads a balanced attack of four double-figure scorers, with 14.0 points a game. He and fellow seniors Erik Crawford and John Little, plus juniors Brooks McKowen and Grant Stout, give McDermott the veterans who are so critical in his intricate half-court offense. (His playbook contains more than 130 sets, "and it's always growing," laments Jacobson.) But it has been the addition of another undersized gem, 6'6" sophomore center Eric Coleman, that has given the team an inside presence to match its outside game.

The Panthers' success has ignited interest in Cedar Falls. Average attendance at the UNI-Dome this season is 6,690, and next year the team will move into a new 7,000-seat arena. A similar fever has broken out at long-suffering Wichita State, where the Shockers' 10,400-seat Charles Koch Arena has been sold out for all but two games this season. A powerhouse in the '80s, Wichita State had just two winning seasons between 1990 and 2001. Under Turgeon, a former player and assistant coach at Kansas who's now in his sixth season, the Shockers have upped their win total every year since his first in Wichita, reaching 22 a year ago. This season four starters are scoring in double digits, led by 6'10" senior Paul Miller (13.4 points a game), who is one of the league's few true post players.

Southern Illinois, despite losing four starters from last season, is in contention again thanks in large part to guard Jamaal Tatum, who admits he probably wouldn't be in the Valley had his outside shot not deserted him during the summer AAU circuit in 2002. "[ Former Iowa State coach] Larry Eustachy walked out of one of my games at halftime," he recalls. Tatum had no such problems last Saturday, racking up 19 points as the Salukis handed Creighton its first home loss of the season 74-67. But defense remains Southern Illinois's calling card. "The faces change, but the style doesn't," McDermott says of the Salukis.

Despite losing top scorer Nate Funk to season-ending shoulder surgery on Jan. 5, Creighton has continued to win thanks to the improved play of 6'9" junior center Anthony Tolliver. One of the conference's top big men, Tolliver is testament to Altman's ability to develop players. "I hadn't been criticized much before, and at first I didn't like it," says Tolliver. "But a big part of my development was the coaches' staying on me." In Altman's high-post offense Tolliver often comes out to the perimeter to create opportunities for senior guard Johnny Mathies, a Louisville native whose first exposure to the school came through a fortuitously placed newspaper story. "Someone cut out an article about me from the state tournament," says Mathies, "and on the back was a picture of Creighton beating Florida in the [2002] NCAA tournament."