Back in my day it was called "The UCLA Invitational"
Jim Nance, Billy Packer, and Digger Phelps certainly thought the Missouri Valley was way overrated. In fact, Packers comment about Bradley even getting into the tournament was "You've gotta be kidding". This Bradley team has finally lived up to it's expectations. Although picked sixth in the pre-season Missouri Valley Standings, they finally put it all together in late February.
Missouri State (formerly Southwest Missouri) really got the shaft. They had an 18 RPI and have only lost 8 games, but an early loss in the MVC tournament sealed their fate. There was no way the committee would put 5 Valley teams in the tournament.
I'm a realist enough to realize that Bradley probably won't advance much further, but we can all hope and cheer for the underdog.
Go BRAVES!!
Just to be nitpicky, that would be three of their eight. Flordia State didn't join the ACC until the early '90s. (1991, maybe?) Otherwise, an interesting trip down memory lane. I miss smaller conferences.
6 of the 24 still playing are from the Huge East (West Virginia, Louisville, Cincinnati, UConn, Villanova, Georgetown).
Another 9 are from the traditional powers Big Ten (Michigan), ACC (BC, Duke, Miami), PAC-10 (UCLA, Washington), and SEC (Florida, LSU, South Carolina).
That's 15 of 24 (62.5%) in 5 expected conferences (out of 31 conferences)
The cool part is that 6 of the 24 still-active teams are from two conferences that are usually non-factors by now: the Colonial (George Mason, Hofstra, Old Dominion), and the Missouri Valley (Wichita State, Bradley, Missouri State). I'm glad that Hofstra and Missouri State are doing their part to make Billy Packer look bad.