Published: October 27, 2009 11:05 pm         

Former Iowa teammates excited about facing each other

ST. LOUIS — Indiana State isn’t the only Missouri Valley Conference school excited about an Iowa transfer this season.

Southern Illinois welcomes former Iowa swingman Tony Freeman to the Saluki fold. Much in the same way ISU guard Jake Kelly stood out for the Hawkeyes last season, Freeman starred in Iowa City during his junior season in 2007. Freeman was a third-team All-Big Ten selection that season, averaging 13.8 points, 3.2 assists and 3.1 rebounds. He’ll have one year of eligibility in a SIU uniform.

Freeman was Kelly’s teammate for one year with the Hawkeyes, when Kelly was a freshman for the Hawkeyes. He thinks the excitement ISU fans have expressed in having Kelly in a Sycamore uniform is justified.

“Jake can do what you ask him to. He’s long enough as a guard to do lots of things and I think he’s become a better shooter. His forte is handling the ball and passing, but most of all, he’s just a good athlete. Jake is an all-around good player and he’s an attribute to any team he’s on,” Freeman said.

ISU opens its Valley campaign against the Salukis at Carbondale, Ill. on Dec. 29. Freeman is looking forward to seeing and playing against his former Iowa teammate.

“Them having Jake makes [Indiana State] more dynamic. I’m looking forward to it. Jake is like a brother to me, I think the match-up will really be fun,” Freeman said.

n Getting more bids — The MVC has qualified just one team into the NCAA men’s tournament in the last two seasons. Considering that the league peaked at four bids in 2006, the paucity of league representation has been a letdown.

The Valley was very young the last two seasons, so the notion prevailed that the league is better positioned to get multiple bids again this season.

However, the pie for non-BCS league schools to get at-large bids has shrunk from 12 in 2006 to four last season. It’s a trend that had several coaches concerned.

“If you’re in the 27 conference that aren’t BCS conferences, it’s very disturbing. Nationally, there’s 27 conferences that are really, really being adversely affected. The graph is going down, down, down. There are four non-BCS that are being allowed in? That’s nothing but disturbing,” Illinois State coach Tim Jankovich said.

Bradley coach Jim Les publicly favored an expansion of the NCAA tournament field.

“I know it’s tied into TV, big business and big dollars. CBS controls those first 32 games, that’s why the play-in game is on ESPN, they don’t want expansion because they’d lose control over that. I just think there’s a lot of good basketball teams that don’t get an opportunity to play in [the NCAA] tournament. We need to be inclusive, and it’s not going to hurt that tournament [if it’s expanded]. Expansion in both the NCAA and NIT need to be looked at,” Les said.

MVC commissioner Doug Elgin did not go as far as some of the coaches did in expressing concern over the make-up of the field. He said the fate of the league’s tournament status is ultimately in its own hands.

“It’s a trend, but lets face it, the league has been down as far as the competition on the floor. I think it has to do with the lack of maturity [in terms of average roster age] on the men’s side. You look at how we’ve competed against top 50 programs, you go back five years, four years, three years, we had greater success,” Elgin said. “I think you’ll progress this year and be even better next year, but to earn respect on the court, you have to play good teams and you have to beat some of them to have a chance.”

n Women’s coaches feel league is stronger — While the men’s coaches pondered how to get back to a multi-bid league after just two seasons, its been eight years since there were multiple representatives in the NCAA Tournament from the women’s side.

If there is a year where that’s going to change, the women’s coaches felt this is it.

“I think with where the league was last year from top to bottom, we’re getting better as a conference. We had teams that hadn’t been in the mix for a while have started to improve,” ISU coach Jim Wiedie said. “There’s probably four or five teams that have a legitimate shot at the regular season and its proven during the tournament that anyone can win. I just think it’s going to be really competitive this year.”

Creighton coach Jim Flanery said it’s time to think about the MVC as a possible multi-bid league.

“Our schedules in a lot cases are a lot better and I think the gap between us and the Big Ten and Big 12, I don’t think there’s not as much difference as there was five years ago, especially with players six-feet and under,” Creighton coach Jim Flanery said. “I think we can get more than one team in the tournament."

Elgin announced that the contract to have the MVC Tournament at the Family Arena in St. Charles, Mo., was extended through 2011.