With its overtime win at UNI on Feb. 23, Drake secured its ninth all-time regular-season MVC crown in men’s basketball (and first since 2019). Drake’s nine regular-season crowns are the most among active members. The Bulldogs — outright MVC champs — finished the regular season with a 27-3 overall record and 17-3 in the MVC to secure the No. 1 seed for the 2025 State Farm MVC Tournament, March 6-9, in St. Louis at Enterprise Center.
There were two ties in the standings that utilized the NET to break the tie. Illinois State and UIC tied for fifth place at 10-10 in league play. The teams each won a game against one another. Illinois State had the better NET rating on Monday, March 3. ISU (123 in the NET) earned the No. 5 seed, while UIC (145) is No. 6.
There was a three-way tie for eighth place (at 8-12) that also utilized the NET to break the tie. Since the three tied teams (Southern Illinois, Indiana State, Evansville) did not play one another an equal number of times, the seed positions were determined based on the NET rating of Monday, March 3. Southern Illinois earns the No. 8 seed (197 in the NET); Indiana State is No. 9 (203); and Evansville takes the No. 10 seed by virtue of its NET rating of 243.
Since 1994, three or more teams have reached 20+ wins in the same season 14 times prior to the conference tournament. Only twice have four teams reached 20+ wins prior to the MVC Tournament (2023, 2025). This year, Belmont, Bradley, Drake, and UNI all sport 20 or more wins heading into the tournament.
No team from the MVC has won four games in four days to claim the league tourney title. Only one team seeded 7 or worse has reached the finals: #7 Valparaiso (2020).
In the 35-year history of the tournament in St. Louis, teams have played a regular-season finale and then met in both teams’ first game of the State Farm MVC Tournament 22 times. In the 20 previous occurrences, the team that has won the regular-season finale won the rematch 15 times, including each of the last eight. Two games Thursday, March 6, feature rematches of regular-season finales in 2025 [UIC-VALPO; INS-SIU]
In Missouri Valley Conference history, only Southern Illinois (1993-94-95) has won three-straight conference tournament titles. Only 10 MVC teams have won back-to-back conference tournament titles, including Drake the past two seasons.
2025 STATE FARM MVC MEN’S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT – GAME SCHEDULE
THURSDAY, MARCH 6
12:00 pm GAME 1 (#8 Southern Illinois vs. #9 Indiana State)
2:30 pm GAME 2 (#5 Illinois State vs. #12 Missouri State)
6:00 pm GAME 3 (#7 Murray State vs. #10 Evansville)
8:30 pm GAME 4 (#6 UIC vs. #11 Valparaiso)
FRIDAY, MARCH 7
12:00 pm GAME 5 (#1 Drake vs. Game 1 Winner)
2:30 pm GAME 6 (#4 Belmont vs. Game 2 Winner)
6:00 pm GAME 7 (#2 Bradley vs. Game 3 Winner)
8:30 pm GAME 8 (#3 UNI vs. Game 4 Winner)
SATURDAY, MARCH 8
2:30 pm GAME 9 (Game 5 & 6 winners)
5:00 pm GAME 10 (Game 7 & 8 winners)
SUNDAY, MARCH 9
1:15 pm MVC Championship Game
* Times of second games of sessions are approximate
