A win over Missouri Valley Conference leader Belmont on Sunday helped Illinois State carry a two-game winning streak and some momentum heading into this weekend’s Missouri Valley Conference [MVC] men’s basketball tournament.
ISU coach Ryan Pedon would like to think that momentum will help, but he’s skeptical.
“I think any coach would rather have momentum than not going into the tournament, but I think that might be the most overrated aspect, because I just don’t believe that momentum affects those 40 minutes a whole lot,” Pedon said in a MVC media call with reporters.
The win did help ISU [20-11] ascend to the No. 3 seed in the quarterfinal round of the 11-team field at the Enterprise Center in St. Louis. The Redbirds will play at 8:30 p.m. Friday against the winner of Thursday’s game between No. 6-seed Northern Iowa and No. 11-seed Evansville.
As late as Saturday afternoon, the Redbirds were staring at the possibility of an opening round game on Thursday. No first-round team has ever advanced to the MVC championship game, much less won it.
The Redbirds were picked to win the MVC this season, in a poll of coaches and media. Pedon said the preseason ranking was understandable given how many experienced players the Redbirds had returning, but he said roster turnover in today’s game makes preseason polls “more meaningless now than ever before.”
Still, the fourth-year coach acknowledged the preseason accolades may have placed added pressure on his team.
“I think it’s natural that there’s some weighted expectations. I have really highly competitive guys, a lot of Type A personalities on the team,” Pedon said.
The Redbirds also are trying to overcome years of disappointment at Arch Madness. ISU last won the Missouri Valley Conference title in 1998, despite plenty of near misses.
The Redbirds have yet to advance to the MVC semifinals during Pedon’s tenure.
“My tournament experiences, they haven’t been the greatest,” he said of the program that has improved in each of his first three seasons after he replaced Dan Muller in 2022.
While the Redbirds bowed out of the Valley tournament quarterfinals last season, they won the College Basketball Invitational postseason tournament last March.
Pedon thinks that experience should help at Arch Madness.
“I think any shared experiences, whether a championship or finding ways to get through adversity, whatever they might be, I think you can always lean on those when you have older guys and you have guys that have been through things together,” he said.
Friday’s quarterfinal is a later start and would also make for a fast turnaround. Saturday’s semifinal is set for 5 p.m. and the finale is scheduled for 11 a.m. Sunday.
The grind of needing three wins in less than 48 hours may seem daunting, but Pedon dismissed the condensed schedule as a concern.
“There’s no team in this tournament that’s played a game at 11 a.m. We’ll be ready,” he said.
