Wheeler (Springfield News-Leader) revisits 2006 Bears snub

[BCPanther]

That was peak MVC fandom for sure... Games in the UNI-Dome that last season were really rocking, and for a time fans were giving our AD hell for not planning to make the McLeod Center (opening the next fall) larger than it is.

They had to add an extra set of bleachers to the north concourse that haven't been used in years now.

Crazy attendances that we wouldn't see even if we were still in the Dome though the 2010 and 2015 teams would have had some big ones. 2020 and 2022 had several McLeod sellouts.

Creighton-8612
Southern-7994 (on a Monday)
Drake-9323
Indiana State-7102
Wichita-8007 (on a Tuesday)
Missouri State-10,053 (People had to sit on the West Side opposite the court)
Bradley-8905

Throw in 9489 for Bucknell and 13,288 for Iowa and it was a helluva year.

We have to get the Valley back to that level. Let's get buildings sold out consistently again.

[Salukimadness86]

I can still remember Jim Nantz and Billy Packard complaining on National TV. They ripped the selection committee, and could not believe that four MVC teams got in.
Two of those four went on to the sweet 16. Karma.
Hinson did get screwed, and should have gotten in.

[Birdfan2018]

2006 Bears getting snubbed probably cost Hinson his job.
2017 Redbirds getting snubbed probably cost Muller his job (or even moving on to P6 after the 2017 NCAA Tournament)

[DUBulldog]

I can still remember Jim Nantz and Billy Packard complaining on National TV. They ripped the selection committee, and could not believe that four MVC teams got in.
Two of those four went on to the sweet 16. Karma.
Hinson did get screwed, and should have gotten in.

After Bradley and WSU made the Sweet 16, I remember Nantz apologizing for his previous comments about mid-majors. He then asked Packard if he had changed his mind at all. Packard didn't even answer, just left dead silence out there.

[Salukimadness86]

I can still remember Jim Nantz and Billy Packard complaining on National TV. They ripped the selection committee, and could not believe that four MVC teams got in.
Two of those four went on to the sweet 16. Karma.
Hinson did get screwed, and should have gotten in.

After Bradley and WSU made the Sweet 16, I remember Nantz apologizing for his previous comments about mid-majors. He then asked Packard if he had changed his mind at all. Packard didn't even answer, just left dead silence out there.

I think I remember that now. Billy Packard was a Wake Forest and Power 5 homer. His son on Satellite radio is the same exact way. Avoid listening at all costs!

[squirrel]

The sad fact is that early on, Packer was very anti-Big East. In fact in the 1980's he was a bigger cheerleader for the Valley. But that had more to do with his ACC bias and insecurity about the Big East.

[MissouriValleyUnite]

Wayback Machine has snapshots of ValleyTalk from 2001 to 2010.
https://web.archive.org/web/20010501000 ... eytalk.net

It's interesting to see usernames like "SMSuperfan" (Missouri St hasn't been SMS since 2005).

[TylerDurden]

While I agree Missouri State should have been the fifth Valley team in 2006, the year I'm most upset about is the following year, in 2007.

The MVC entered Selection Sunday with four top-40 RPI teams and six in the top 100. The worst team in the league was Indiana State at 139.

They ended up with only two bids.

2006 had six teams in the top 40, but not another until 163. The worst team on Selection Sunday was Illinois State at 232.

I know that year-to-year is hard to compare, but the MVC in 2007 was a damn dog fight with some really good teams who could/should have earned at large bids and would have if the league name had been different.

[bcg]

Hard to believe that the Scottrade Center was sold out for the 2007 MVC Semifinals. It had just been a few years before that that the Championship game was on ESPN2 on Monday night at 8:30pm with virtually nobody there.