Conner Frankamp scored 19 points and Markis McDuffie added 16 as No. 21 Wichita State rolled to a 71-51 victory over Illinois State in the Missouri Valley Conference tournament championship game Sunday in St. Louis.
Wichita State wins 2017 MVC basketball tournament: Shockers roll to 71-51 ‘Arch Madness’ title
Missouri Valley regular season co-champion Illinois State will now spend the next seven days squarely on the bubble.
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The win guarantees that Wichita State will be making its sixth consecutive appearance in the NCAA Tournament. The Shockers have won nine games in the Big Dance over that span, and have won at least one game in every tournament since 2012. They crashed the Final Four and nearly upset eventual national champion Louisville in 2013.
While Wichita State has been overwhelmingly successful on the national scene in recent years, that hasn’t been the case as much in their own conference tournament. This was only the Shockers’ second league tournament title in the last 29 years. Gregg Marshall and company also cut down the nets in 2014.
Despite the fact that Wichita State went 17-1 in the Missouri Valley during the regular season and is the No. 21 team in the country according to the current AP Poll, the Shockers weren’t even the No. 1 seed at Arch Madness. That distinction belonged to Illinois State. The two teams split their season series (Wichita State won by 41 at home and lost by 14 on the road), but the Redbirds earned the No. 1 seed by virtue of having a superior RPI, which is the league’s established tiebreaker in such situations.
Despite its sparkling overall record of 27-6 and respectable RPI of 31, Illinois State has a nervous week ahead of it. The Redbirds don’t have an overly impressive non-conference victory on their resume, but they’re still in as a No. 11 seed in the latest bracket projection from SB Nation’s Chris Dobbertean. Wichita State is projected as a No. 10 seed in the same bracket.
Adding to the frustration for Illinois State is the fact that this defeat marks the fifth time since 2008 that they’ve lost in the MVC championship game. The Redbirds haven’t appeared in the NCAA tournament since 1998, which was also the last time they won a league tournament title.
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