By Woodrow Carroll
In spite of a 58-57 victory over Ohio University Friday, March 4, the Northern Illinois University men’s basketball team failed to qualify for the Mid-American Conference (MAC) Tournament in Cleveland this week. With it the Huskies’ season likely has come to an end.
The victory over Ohio, 23-8 overall and 14-6 in the MAC, which ended a five-game losing streak for Northern Illinois, was a nice way to conclude Rashon Burno’s first campaign as the Northern Illinois head coach. The victory was not enough to get the Huskies into the MAC tournament.
The Huskies ended up 9-21 overall and 6-14 in the MAC, which is comprised of 12 teams. The top eight teams in conference action make the tournament. The Huskies ended in 10th place.
Not too many years ago, every team in the MAC qualified for the Conference tournament. Now the bottom four are left out.
Similar to so many conferences in every sport, the MAC has tinkered with scheduling in recent seasons. Once there were two divisions for men’s basketball. Now all 12 teams are lumped together. The number of Conference games recently was increased from 18 to 20.
• In the school’s swan song as a member of the Missouri Valley Conference, the Loyola University Ramblers assured themselves a berth in the upcoming NCAA Tournament by beating Drake, 64-58, in the championship game of the Conference tournament Sunday, March 6 in St. Louis.
Loyola will join the Atlantic 10 Conference next season. The Ramblers no longer will have instate conference foes such as Bradley, Illinois State, or Southern Illinois-Carbondale which the Missouri Valley Conference provided Loyola in recent seasons. In geographical references, Loyola’s nearest foes in the Atlantic 10 will be the St. Louis Billikens and the Dayton Flyers.
It was not too many years ago that Loyola was in the Horizon League doing battle with Butler, among other teams. Of course, Butler long since has moved to the Big East Conference where the Bulldogs confront DePaul University of Chicago and nine other teams. Not so long ago Loyola and Butler were members of the Horizon League mixing it up with Illinois-Chicago (UIC). Similar to Loyola, the UIC Flames are on the move. UIC will move to the Missouri Valley Conference with next season. Filling in for Loyola it would almost seem.
• Thanks to a hard-fought 74-72 victory over Iowa Sunday, March 6, Illinois, 15-5 in the Big Ten Conference gained a share of the championship with Wisconsin. Wisconsin was forced to share the top spot when the Badgers were upset, 74-73, at home by Nebraska Sunday, March 6.
Illinois goes into this week’s Big Ten tournament in Indianapolis as the No. 1 seed thanks to holding the tiebreaker over Wisconsin. Illinois will face the Indiana-Michigan winner Friday 10:30 a.m. in its opening tournament game.
The Fighting Illini are defending Big Ten Tournament champion after its 91-88 victory against Ohio State in the championship game last season. Last year, Illinois was the No. 2 seed with Ohio State No. 5.
Illinois will be in the NCAA Tournament. It is just a matter of how high the Illinois will be seeded. Success in the tournament will have some bearing on the Illini’s NCAA seeding, although you can bet Illinois will be favored over its first-round foe.
In last season’s NCAA Tournament, Illinois beat Drexel, 78-49, before being stunned by Loyola 71-58. A match-up between Illinois and Loyola is not out of the question and would receive attention for sure.