Going into the final day of the regular season, only two of the 11 teams in the Missouri Valley Conference knew when they were going to play in their first game of Arch Madness, the Missouri Valley Conference’s St. Louis-based tournament to decide who gets to go to the NCAA men’s basketball Tournament.

Once the dust settled and everyone had their matchups, fans of just about every team were convincing themselves that they had a chance to be the final team standing, but knew that they could be knocked out in round one. Vance Sawyer, SIU Alumni Association board member and March to the Arch podcast co-host, is no different.

“I’ll put it this way: I’m packing four Saluki outfits to take to St. Louis in case I need them all,” he said in a message to the Daily Egyptian. “I expect to wear two of them, I’d be ecstatic if I wore three, and cloud nine if four.”

Noah Lerch, co-host of the Dawgs Basketball podcast that follows the SIU men’s basketball squad, put it as concisely as possible.

“Worst case scenario is losing the first game of Arch Madness on Thursday. Best case is getting to Sunday because this team has gotten hot and has the talent to beat anyone,” he said in a message to the Daily Egyptian.

To Lerch’s point, the Salukis are currently on a four-game win streak, and three of those wins have come on the road. On the other side of the coin, the Dawgs also have a four-game losing streak on their resume, and two of those losses were at the Banterra Center. 

The path for the Salukis is littered with roadblocks, but many of those roadblocks are ones the Salukis have pushed aside once before already this season.

Their first opponent are the Drake Bulldogs in the very first game of the tournament on Thursday, March 5. SIU comes into the tournament as the eight seed, with the Bulldogs coming in as the ninth seed. 

Those seedings would make it seem like the Dawgs are favored in that matchup, and they should be. Two weeks ago, the Salukis beat the Bulldogs 66-61 in Des Moines. 

In the first matchup between the two teams, Drake stole a game out from underneath SIU in a 76-73 overtime decision at the Banterra Center Jan. 14. The Salukis did, however, hold a 17-point second half lead in that contest.

If they get past the Bulldogs, they’ll be rewarded with a date with the regular season champion Belmont Bruins the next day. The Salukis are one of five teams that can boast a victory over the Bruins this season, a 68-67 win in Nashville Jan. 4. The key to that victory was holding sharpshooter Tyler Lundblade to only one 3-point make on four attempts. 

In SIU’s 73-68 loss to the Bruins Jan. 17, Lundblade went 0-6 from distance. If the Salukis can replicate that defensive effort, which is very likely given how historically unforgiving the Enterprise Center rims are, they have a decent chance at making it to Saturday for the first time since 2023.

If they do make it to Saturday, They take on either fourth-seeded Murray State Racers or fifth-seeded Illinois-Chicago Flames, two teams the Dawgs went a combined 0-4 against. That’s not to say that either would be an impossible mountain to climb.

Despite going 0-2 against the Flames, the Salukis can take solace in the fact that they were able to build a 17-point second half lead before it slipped away in a 68-66 home loss on Jan. 31. That and the fact that SIU has been able to claim at least one victory over UIC every year the Flames have been in the MVC should give Salukis fans comfort that they’d have a fighting chance in round three. 

The Racers seem to have the Salukis’ number, but both games have been a dogfight. Outside of the first half of the two teams’ Feb. 6 matchup, the two teams are separated by only four points in 60 minutes of play. 

Then if the Dawgs get to Sunday, there are six different teams they could play. In their 12 regular season matchups against that group of six teams, they went 8-4, with their only 0-2 blemish being against the second-seeded Bradley Braves. That means they have the in on how to beat five of their six possible championship game opponents.

Now, that’s not to say any of this is going to, or even likely to, happen. It’s just as possible Drake takes the old adage “It’s hard to beat a team three times” to heart, and dashes SIU’s hopes Thursday afternoon. It’s just as possible Lundblade finally finds his shot against the Salukis, or the Racers continue their recent dominance of the Dawgs. 

Anything can happen in March, but it’s going to be a tough mountain to climb for the Salukis. They start their Arch Madness journey at 3:30 p.m. on Thursday, March 5 against the Drake Bulldogs at Enterprise Center in St. Louis. For live coverage from St. Louis, check dailyegyptian.com or the DE social media pages.

Sports Reporter Eli Hoover can be found at [email protected] or on Instagram @hoovermakesart

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