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Tight Race to the Finish
With two games to go in the regular season, The Valley race has a two-way tie at the top of the standings with Belmont and Illinois State sitting at 15-3 in league play.  Missouri State and UNI sit one game back at 14-4.  The Bruins have won 12-straight games after starting the league season 3-3.      

The 2022-23 regular season wraps up with games this Thursday and Saturday.  The full bracket for Hoops in the Heartland will be released Saturday following the conclusion of the games.  The tournament will be held at Vibrant Arena at The MARK in Moline, Illinois on March 9-12. (TOURNAMENT CENTRAL)

Seed Ranges
Below are the seed ranges heading into the final week of the regular season.

 

TEAM	Range of Seeds
Illinois State	1-4
Belmont	1-4
UNI	1-4
Missouri State	1-5
Drake	4-5
UIC	6-9
Southern Illinois	6-9
Murray State	6-11
Evansville	6-11
Indiana State	8-11
Valparaiso	8-11
Bradley	12

Multi-Champs
This is the 40th season of Valley women’s basketball with only seven of those seasons having a co-champion. There have been four seasons with co-champs and three seasons with tri-champs.

MVC Seasons With Multi-Champions
2013-14 Wichita State/Indiana State (14-4)
2012-13 Creighton/Wichita State (15-3)
2002-03 Creighton/Indiana State (13-5)
2000-01 Missouri State/Drake (16-2)

MVC Seasons With Tri-Champions
1987-88 Eastern Ill./Illinois St./Indiana St. (14-4)
1989-90 Southern Ill./Illinois St./Missouri St. (14-4)
2007-08 Illinois St./Evansville/Drake (13-5)

Homecourt Advantage
While the league’s overall homecourt record is a pedestrian 58-50 (53.7 percent), notably the five teams with winning records in league play have combined for a 38-8 record at home (82.6 percent).  Belmont finished 9-1 at home in league play, while Illinois State and Missouri State each went 8-2.  UNI (6-2) and Drake (7-1) close out their home schedule this weekend. 

Nothing But NET
The NCAA NET Report (Feb. 26) has four Valley teams that rank in the top-100, including six of the 12 sitting in the top 150.  Drake leads the way at No. 56 with UNI (62), Belmont (82) and Illinois State (85), rounding out the schools in the Top 100. Missouri State (105) and Murray State (141) rank in the top 150.  

20 Wins
Since the start of the 1992-93 season only three 20-win MVC teams have been left out of the postseason. Last season, Southern Illinois, Missouri State, UNI and Drake all reached 20 wins, with all four teams reaching the NCAA or WNIT field. Illinois State has won 20+ games in a season for the first time under Kristen Gillespie, and first time as a program since the 2012-13 season which saw ILS finish 24-11.  Belmont, Missouri State and UNI are all one win away from 20 on the season. 

20-Win Seasons (since 1982-83)
21 - Missouri State
19 - Drake
13 - Illinois State
10 - Southern Illinois
6 - UNI
5 - Indiana State
3 - Evansville
3 – Bradley

Sharpshooter
Illinois State’s Mary Crompton continues her move up The Valley career three-point field goal list.  The graduate student sits 3rd on The Valley’s all-time list. Crompton is four triples shy of second place.

3-Point Field Goals Made (Career)
    1.    314 - Gabi Haack, Bradley    2017-22
    2.    294 - Dayna Finch, Creighton    2001-04
    3.    290 - Mary Crompton, Illinois State    2018-pres.

BEL: Keep on Rollin’
With its 83-77 victory over Drake Saturday, Belmont avenged its Jan. 6 94-63 road loss to the Bulldogs. The Bruins’ 31-point defeat in Des Moines, Iowa, was their worst conference loss in well over a decade. Belmont has won an MVC-best 12 consecutive games dating back to Jan. 15.  After a 3-7 start, the Bruins have won 16 of their last 19 games. Belmont’s average margin of victory during its 12-game winning streak is 17 points.

BRAD: Senior Day
The Braves and Flames met for the second time this season at the Renaissance Coliseum in Peoria on Saturday afternoon. Veronika Roberts was celebrated for Senior Day, and it was the inaugural Be Bold, Go Gold! game for pediatric cancer awareness.   Roberts had seven points and three rebounds on her Senior Day.   

DU: Road Swing Split
The Drake Bulldogs went on the road for the penultimate weekend of the 2022-23 regular season schedule. Drake split a pair of games away from Des Moines to finish the year 6-6 in true road games. They began the weekend with a 97-71 victory over Murray State (2/23) in which Maggie Bair logged a career-high 28 points and the Bulldogs equaled their season high in points scored. Drake concluded their road schedule with an 83-77 loss at Belmont. The Bruins held on to down Drake after the Bulldogs put together a ferocious second-half comeback, nearly erasing a 17-point deficit. Drake will finish the regular season with a pair of home contests against Missouri State and Southern Illinois. 

UE: Short Handed Aces
Opening the season in good health, the Aces have battled through a string of injuries down the stretch of the season. Of Evansville’s five starters, the Aces played just one game without one of those starters through the first 19 games of the season. Since those first 19 games, Evansville has played four straight contests missing at least one starter. Despite having to play short-handed, Evansville has reached double-digit wins for just the fourth time since 2008-09 and the first time since the 2016-17 campaign.

UIC: Nearing 1K
As the Flames return this upcoming week, two members of their program have the opportunity to reach new milestones in their last two home conference games of the season. Josie Filer is now 9 points away from 1,000 career points. She has scored in double figures in 19 games this season. Jaida McCloud is 17 points away from the milestone. The junior is in her third year with UIC and has been the lead scorer for the Flames in 12 different games this season.   

ILS: 15 League Wins
The Redbirds also have 15 conference wins heading into the final regular season week against Evansville and Indiana State. The last time ILS held 14 or more conference wins in a season came during the 2009-10 campaign, as ILS finished 16-2 in MVC play that year. 

INS: Heating Up
Indiana State freshman guard Bella Finnegan has stepped up on the offensive end for the Sycamores in the month of February. Finnegan posted six double-figure scoring games in the month, including a pair of 20-point performances on the road. In eight games in the month of February, Finnegan averaged a team-leading 15.3 points per game while also chipping in 4.5 rebounds and 1.8 assists per game, both increases from her season averages.

MOST: Dominating the Glass
The Lady Bears continue to dominate on the glass this season. As a team, MSU ranks sixth nationally and first in the MVC with 16.7 offensive rebounds per game, while four individual Lady Bears rank inside the top 10 in the MVC in the category (Kennedy Taylor, Indya Green, Sydney Wilson and Jade Masogayo). MSU also ranks 7th nationally in rebound margin at plus-10.4 and 14th in the nation in total rebounds per game at 42.8.  

MUR:  Can’t Miss!
Macey Turley broke her own record for consecutive made free throws of 45 Saturday and has now made 46 consecutive free throws, not missing one since Dec. 3. On Thursday, Turley eclipsed the 2,000 point mark to become just the fourth Racer in program history to do so.

UNI: Road Warriors
For the fifth straight season, UNI will end the regular season with a road record of .500 or better. The Panthers won two-thirds of their road games this season and only fell twice in MVC action. With eight wins and only four losses on the road this season, UNI has its best away winning percentage since 2010-2011 when the Panthers went 11-4 away from the McLeod Center.  

SIU: Dominant Home Wins
In their final two games at home, the Salukis earned a pair of dominant victories over Indiana State and Evansville. In Saturday’s 109-59 win over the Purple Aces, Southern Illinois crossed the century mark in points for the third time this season and first time since Dec. 7 vs. Tennessee State. The 12 blocks against Evansville are a new season-high, while the team’s 33 assists are tied for the most in a game in 2022-23.  

VU: Hitting From Inside
Valpo’s win at Bradley on Thursday, which was its third road victory in the span of seven days, was highlighted by the Beacons’ prolificacy inside the arc. Valpo was 17-of-23 from 2-point range against the Braves, its 73.9% clip the program’s best on 2-pointers since February 1997.

HerHoopStats Stat of the Week
Promise Taylor of Southern Illinois had a triple-double on February 25th with 20 points, 11 rebounds, and 10 blocks. She’s the first MVC player to ever record an official triple-double with blocks, setting a conference record with 10 blocks in the game. It was the first triple-double in SIU history and the first in the MVC since 1/30/2015 when Caitlin Ingle did it for Drake.


Hoops In the Heartland 
The 2023 Missouri Valley Conference Women’s Basketball Tournament will return to Vibrant Arena in Moline, Ill., for the eighth-straight year.  The Valley becomes the only Division I stand-alone women’s basketball event to be held in the same city eight or more consecutive years. 

In fact, Hoops in the Heartland 2023 will match the ACC, SEC, Big Ten and Big 12 Conference Tournaments, as the only Division I stand-alone women’s basketball championships to be held at a neutral site for more than 15 consecutive years.

Affectionately coined “Hoops in the Heartland,” the four-day event (Mar. 9-12) will showcase all 12 Missouri Valley Conference schools as they compete for the Valley’s automatic berth into the NCAA Tournament. 

The 2023 MVC Women’s Basketball Tournament title game on Sunday, March 12, will be aired on ESPNU at 1PM CT for the second consecutive season. The first 10 tournament contests will be shown exclusively on ESPN+.