ST. LOUIS -- Regular-season champ UNI (18-10, 14-4 MVC) is the State Farm MVC Tournament top seed after earning the league’s men’s basketball title for the fourth time in its history. Tonight’s overtime victory over visiting Loyola was the 13th overtime contest in league play -- the most in at least the past 50 seasons.
Printable Bracket (PDF)
There was a three-way tie in the standings for second place. Drake, Loyola and Missouri State each had 13-5 league records. Missouri State recorded a 3-1 record against the other two (2-0 vs. Drake and 1-1 against Loyola); Drake was 2-2 collectively against the tied teams (0-2 vs. Missouri State and 2-0 vs. Loyola); and Loyola was 1-3 against the other tied teams. The teams were seeded based on those cumulative records against one another.
The tournament will feature two first-round matchups of teams that played in the regular-season finale as No. 8 Illinois State will play No. 9 Indiana State on Thursday; and No. 3 Drake will take on No. 6 Southern Illinois State on Friday evening. It will mark the 18th and 19th times in tournament history in St. Louis that two teams played the last game of the regular season against one another and met in their first games at Arch Madness.
This year’s tournament is the 46th MVC post-season tourney and 32nd-straight in St. Louis. Only the Big East Conference, which is celebrating 43-straight years in New York, has had a longer continuous run at the same neutral site for its conference men’s basketball championship.
The top seed has won the title 10 times in St. Louis in 31 years, just seven times in the past 14 tries and only twice since 2014 (Loyola-2018 and Loyola-2021). Notably, only five times has a seed worse than No. 3 won the tournament (No. 4 Creighton in 2000, No. 4 UNI in 2016, No. 5 Indiana State in 2001, No. 5 Bradley in 2019; No. 4 Bradley in 2020).
The tourney’s top two seeds are a combined 59-3 in their first games in the 31 years in St. Louis. Of current members, Southern Illinois and UNI own the most tournament titles, with five each. Other current members who have won an MVC Tournament title include Bradley (4), Drake (1), Illinois State (4), Indiana State (3), Loyola Chicago (2) and Missouri State (1).
Forty of 45 previous tournament champions were seeded 1, 2, or 3. The top two seeds have had the most success, winning a combined 33 times, and the top two seeds have won 20 titles in St. Louis (in 31 total tries). The last 16 MVC tournament champions have consisted of seven top seeds, five No. 2 seeds, a No. 3 seed, two No. 4 seeds (including Bradley in 2020) and a No. 5 (Bradley in 2019).
The tournament features nine games in four days, beginning Thursday, March 3, and ending Sunday, March 6. All games of the tournament will be televised in HD nationally. The first six games will air on the MVC TV Network, the semifinals will air on CBS Sports Network, and the championship game will air on CBS Sports. The CBS telecast of the 2022 MVC Championship game will mark the 17th-straight year the tournament finals have aired on national over-the-air television on CBS.