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Anything can happen in the Missouri Valley Conference, and the same goes for the MVC Tournament.
This season, all but two teams in the Valley finished with an overall record at or above .500. The two teams with sub-.500 records are Evansville (14-16, 6-12), which defeated first-place SIU Jan. 17, and Indiana State (12-17, 5-13), a team second-place Creighton lost to Jan. 4.
Creighton also lost to eight-seeded Illinois State Feb. 20 to open the door for the No. 11 Salukis to clinch the regular season MVC Championship.
"Who wants to play Drake right off the bat? Who wants to play Indiana State? There's nobody going in there saying we want to play this team," Missouri State coach Barry Hinson, whose third-place Bears suffered a loss to the Purple Aces, said. "I think every team going into this tournament this year has to like their chances because of the preparation they've had through the conference and how well they've played at one time or another."
SIU (25-5, 15-3) enters the MVC Tournament on the highest note as winners of 11 straight games and the Valley's regular season champions.
However, the last team to win the MVC crown in the regular season and the tournament is Illinois State in 1998.
Saluki sophomore guard Bryan Mullins said in the competitive MVC Tournament, the key is to only think about the task at hand and nothing beyond that.
"This whole conference this year, anyone can win at any day depending on what team shows up and how they play," Mullins said. "We know we got to take it one game at a time and make sure we're thinking about Friday on Friday and not Sunday."
Mullins said the one game at a time approach will also be critical for SIU because it is a virtual lock for the NCAA Tournament, as it will be just as focused on winning the tournament as the Salukis were last season.
Senior guard Jamaal Tatum, though, said despite SIU having made five-straight NCAA Tournaments, he doesn't consider the Salukis a lock this season.
"We're just taking this program farther, I think is what's going to be our motivation going into this tournament," Tatum said. "We don't want to stop with No. 11 or don't want to stop with knowing that we're in or thinking that we're in. Who knows? Something crazy could happen, you know, so I'm not going to even be that content with saying that we're in already."
SIU junior forward Randal Falker said he is already up for the MVC Tournament and playing for Tatum and fellow senior guard Tony Young.
"We're going to play for them till the time runs out," Falker said. "Whatever I do, I'm going to do for them."
Lowery has said all season the leadership from Young and Tatum has been integral in the Salukis' success.
Tatum, the 2007 Larry Bird MVC Player of the Year recipient, is SIU's leading scorer with 14.5 points per game. Young, along with Falker and Mullins, was named to the Valley's All-Defensive First Team.
Lowery said Tatum and Young being seniors is the main difference from last season, when the SIU was runner-up to Wichita State for the regular season crown.
"That's why we struggled last year, because we didn't have seniors. We didn't have the guys to really take over at the end of a game," Lowery said. "We knew what needed to be done but didn't know how to do it and I think that was the key last year as opposed to this year."
