Wichita State (20-4, 11-2) vs. Southern Illinois (10-14, 4-9)
Koch Arena; Wichita, KS
7:00 CST
With a few surprising results in the Valley this past week, the Shockers find themselves all alone at the top of the Valley as they play host to the Southern Illinois Salukis. The Shockers are coming off another lopsided victory, this time over Illinois State 74-57. WSU is currently on a 5 game winning streak, where all of the victories have been by double didgets.
On the opposite side of the rankings, the Salukies have dropped five games in a row, including three on their home court. The SIU faithful have become a bit agitated with the progress, or lack of progress by the Salukies this season. The most recent loss, a 66-69 decision in the favor of Bradley, was the Braves second win in conference play. Things are not looking good in Carbondale, and they most likely will not get any better tonight.
Evansville (13-10, 7-6) vs. Northern Iowa (18-7, 9-4)
Evansville, IN
7:05 CST
The Purple Aces were red hot heading into frozen Omaha last Saturday afternoon, but they left O-Town win a tough loss. Spurred by the effort of Antoine Young, Creighton was able to ut a stop to the Aces winning ways with a 75-69 victory. Evansville will return home tonight to tak eon a struggling UNI team.
The Panthers are coming off a loss of their own, however, this one was the first in eight tries against Drake. UNI had handled the Bulldogs by an average of 20 points in the previous 8 meetings, but the loss of Lucas O’Rear seems to be hitting the Panthers pretty hard. Tonights game will be an important one in terms of conference seeding, as the Aces are looking to get out of the log jam that is fourth place, and the Panthers are trying to keep their season together.
