The MVC Rundown

The server that the Ledger runs on was compromised this weekend, and thus we weren’t able to do anything since Friday.

We’re back online and will continue coverage through the remainder of the season.

They’re called talking heads for a reason, but ESPN’s Doug Gottlieb and Tom Brennan both say two Missouri Valley teams on the bubble are out of the NCAA Tournament.

After losses to Southern Illinois and Creighton today, the omniscient ESPN commentators agreed that neither Bradley nor Missouri St. will be in the field of 65 that’s unveiled next Sunday.

If they’re right, that would mean just two MVC teams are in the Big Dance — a horrific possibility that will become reality if things get messy in conference tournament play in the upcoming week.

SIU won easily, Bradley and UNI are tangling as I type, but the best game of the night should be Missouri St. against Wichita State.

There isn\’t much more analysis we can offer at this point.

With a Bears\’ win, the NCAA tourney selelction committee almost has to let Missouri St. into the tourney. Sure, a loss doesn\’t doom the Bears to the NIT.

And the Shockers would need to win three in a row to get in.

Thursday morning and we’re on the road from Evansville to Springfield.

We hadn’t yet sewn up our press credentials for the UNI-Missouri St. game, so a final call to Missouri State’s sports information office was in order.

The SID, however, informed us that they do not give press credentials to web sites. It was pretty disappointing, since we planned this trip around each of these games, and had tried calling Missouri St. for weeks and getting a “Oh you should be OK but call back the week of the game” response.

I get the wake-up call at 7am, as I wanted to ensure I got some food into my system after staying up late waiting for the train.

Breakfast was “catered” as apparently the dining car had some issues and the regular fare wasn’t available. Catered breakfast on Amtrak means you get cereal, juice, and stale muffins. Yum.

I chit-chat with an elderly lady from North Carolina, and another gal, presumably my age, from Philadelphia. They speak of delicious breakfasts on prior days — eggs, bacon, french toast. I take another look at my stale muffin and chuckle to myself.

A wonderful start, as I get a call Monday afternoon that my 7pm train to Chicago will be five hours late. No problem, at least they called.

I check back around 9pm to see what the status is, and it’s been moved back to 1am. I decide to head to downtown Denver around 10:30 via bus, and arrive at the station around midnight.

The board at the station indicates my train will arrive at 2am. Shortly after, this changes to 3am. Not really a big deal, this gives me the chance to find a bar and deliver some alcohol into my system — I’m not driving, so why not?

Starting next Wednesday in Evansville, the Ledger will embark on a three-game, four-day Valley field trip.

Yep, Bob and I are hitting the road to check out some games and do some more in-depth coverage. We might even have a few funny stories to tell by the time the 1,722 miles in the car are driven.

On January 17, we’ll take in Southern Illinois at Evansville. From there we drive to Springfield to catch Northern Iowa tangle with Missouri St on the 18th.

After a day off to catch our breath, we’ll roll into Omaha to see the Salukis against Creighton on January 20.

We’ve been having some server problems here at the Ledger, and would like to apologize for the outages that have occurred in the past couple days.

Look for some new content later this evening.

A quick note on what’s going to appear here on Saturday: I’ll be covering the Wichita State-Wyoming game from Casper, Wyo.

This means we’ll have a full, in-depth recap of the game, including coverage from the postgame press conference.

Recaps of other MVC games on Saturday may be lacking, but we’ll more than make up for it on this game.

If even the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry, it’s not surprising that our plans here at the Ledger have gotten a bit off-course as we gear up for the season.

The idea was to keep the previews coming steadily each weekend, culminating with Nos. 4-1 next Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Part of that plan, of course, was to do two previews this weekend. Unfortunately, the staff will be out of town over the weekend, and the work week was not conducive to getting anything done.