Missouri Valley Conference courts respect through RPI

~ No team has made the AP's top 25, but the league is ranked fifth in one RPI conference poll with Northern Iowa at No. 9 among teams.

DES MOINES, Iowa -- The Missouri Valley Conference has always been regarded as one of the nation's top "midmajor" leagues. But if this season's RPI rankings are any indication, Valley teams are playing more like big-time programs than ever before.

In its latest RPI poll, Collegiate Basketball News rated the MVC as the fifth-best conference in the nation. Five league teams, led by Northern Iowa, currently rank in the top 50 in the RPI ranking.

But despite a higher RPI rating than the Pac 10 and the Big 12, the conference has yet to land a team in the Top 25 this season. So Valley coaches and officials have rallied around the RPI -- the formula used by the NCAA to help determine tournament seeding -- as a way the league can earn the national recognition they feel it deserves.

"The RPI rankings, the objective rankings, have helped because it gives the people who follow it, who write about it some ammunition to say 'Wait a minute. This isn't an idea. This is a fact,'" said Drake coach Tom Davis, the longtime Iowa coach who took over the Bulldogs three years ago. "I've been around some very good leagues, and I'm very impressed with what the Valley has been doing."

Northern Iowa (14-3, 4-2 MVC) has reached the NCAA tournament the past two seasons and feature one of the nation's most experienced starting lineups. The Panthers have beaten Iowa, LSU and Dayton in 2005-06 and have jumped all the way to ninth in the latest RPI poll.

But the top 25 has been out of reach. With Valley teams mostly shut out of national TV slots, even teams like UNI face an uphill battle for national recognition.

"It's a tragedy that a team like Iowa, which [UNI] beat, is getting more votes than Northern Iowa, and the only reason is they played on ESPN against Illinois," Missouri State coach Barry Hinson said. "They deserve to be in the top 20. If they were in a large market area, they'd be in the top 20."

Fifty percent of the RPI formula is opponents' Division I winning percentage, which is designed in part to reward teams that schedule games against top notch nonconference competition.

Perhaps no league in the country plays as many BCS conference schools in the first part of the season than the Valley, and league teams have gone 7-9 against BCS teams. Indiana State beat No. 9 Indiana, Wichita State beat Providence and lost to No. 7 Illinois by one point, Bradley won at DePaul by 15, and Evansville defeated Purdue.

But wins over major conference programs are a double-edged sword for Valley teams. They help raise the league's profile, but make it more difficult to get future games against BCS conference teams.

"When they realize there's an opportunity to get beat, then they're really reluctant to schedule you," Bradley coach Jim Less said.

If the Valley can maintain its place in the RPI rankings, they'll have a chance to land four teams in the NCAA tournament for the first time. Every conference that has finished the season rated fifth or higher in the RPI has placed at least four of its teams in the Big Dance, meaning teams like Missouri State, Southern Illinois, Wichita State and Creighton have a chance to be in strong positions for at-large bids.

But the public places much stronger emphasis on national rankings than the RPI, and having a Valley team ranked would go a long way toward changing the league's national perception as simply a mid-major conference.

"The top 25 doesn't make a whole lot of difference to me," UNI coach Greg McDermott said. "It would be a lot more important in mid-February than it is now. I think it's good for the league when we can get someone in the Top 25. I think it's just a little more publicity for a league that deserves it."