Missouri Valley Basketball: Indiana State wins to finish MTE season
Indiana State became the fifth Missouri Valley Conference team with a winning record during multi-team events. The Sycamores defeated Tarleton State 87-71. Indiana State (5-4) won its last two games of the Baha Mar Hoops Nassau Championship.
Valley teams finished the Thanksgiving MTE season with a record of 15-13.
The Sycamores scored 53, first-half points on the way to their sixth game of 80 or more points. Leading scorer Samage Teel led the way with 24 points. Joining Teel with double digit scoring performances were Markus Harding (15) and Bruno Alocen (14).
During Saturday’s win, coach Matthew Graves’ bench contributed 38 bench points. Sunday the Sycamore reserves added 25 more. Indiana State’s 17 assists Sunday matched its Saturday total and raised their season average to 16.3 per game.
Last year’s Sycamore team finished 32-7 under Josh Schertz. After Schertz and the entire starting lineup left, Graves rebuilt the roster and the NIT runners-up are one game over .500 with two of their four losses coming by five points or less.
Bradley and Drake were each undefeated in MTE play and Indiana State joined Belmont and Valparaiso as MVC teams with 2-1 MTE records.
Missouri Valley Conference teams take a turn into conference play this week. As the Sycamores begin league action at Missouri State on Saturday. They’ll be facing the conference’s leading scorer, Dez White.
Tuesday night Evansville visits Murray State and preseason favorite Bradley travels to Southern Illinois. Wednesday, Belmont hosts Illinois State and Northern Iowa travels to Illinois Chicago. UNI will be attempting to slow down the league’s top scoring team.
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Undefeated Drake is the conference’s best defensive team and starts the conference rigors by visiting Valparaiso on Thursday. The Beacons are the Valley’s best free throw shooting team.