5 MVC games Saturday, Jan. 31

[Da Coach]

10 of the 11 MVC teams are in action Saturday, January, 31. Illinois State is the only team not playing.
Scoreboard- https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/scoreboard/_/date/20260131/group/18

	Away	Home	Time	Location	Links
	Valparaiso	Indiana State	12:00 PM	Terre Haute, Ind. (Conf.)	TV: ESPN+ Stats Video
	Evansville	UNI	3:00 PM	Cedar Falls, Iowa (Conf.)	TV: ESPN+ Stats Video
	Bradley	Drake	5:00 PM	Des Moines, IA (Conf.)	TV: CBS Sports Network Stats
	UIC	Southern Illinois	6:00 PM	Carbondale, IL (Conf.)	TV: ESPN+ Stats
	Murray State	Belmont	7:00 PM	Nashville, TN (Conf.)	TV: CBS Sports Network Stats

Saturday, January 31, 2026 Men's Basketball​

 

[yoda]

Valpo picks up a road win at Indiana state 76-72 in overtime
Valpo is now 5-6, tied with UNI for 7th place and close to overtaking Drake

Indiana State- as tough as they play everyone and take opponents to OT, they fall to just 2-9. Eight of their games
have been decided by 5 points or less, with three going to OT. They will be a tough draw in St. Louis.

 

[Da Coach]

Scores from today's games- https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/scoreboard/_/seasontype/2/group/18

In the last 2 games still in progress-
SIU maintaining a double-digit lead over UIC, midway through the 2nd half. UIC does not look like the same team that beat Bradley a week ago and has a 7-game winning streak.- https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/boxscore/_/gameId/401830286

And Belmont leads Murray State 22-4 in the first half. Murray State looks hapless. They are just 1-11 from the floor and 0-6 from three, with 4 turnovers in the first 7 1/2 minutes. They are being outrebounded 11-5, and their 5 starters are just 1-7 from the floor for 4 points.

Murray State vs. Belmont (Jan 31, 2026) Box Score - ESPN

Box score for the Murray State Racers vs. Belmont Bruins NCAAM game from January 31, 2026 on ESPN. Includes all points, rebounds and steals stats.

www.espn.com

 

[Da Coach]

SIU lead UIC for nearly the entire game, but UIC came back and took the lead inside the final minute to win by 2, 68-66
SIU drops to 9-13, 3-8 and UIC wins their 8th game in a row to go to 13-10, 8-4.
Final score- UIC 68 SIU 66-
https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/boxscore/_/gameId/401830286

Belmont built a 24 point lead in the first half, but then they cooled off a little and Murray State rallied a bit to finish the 1st half down 14 points.
Halftime score- Belmont 54 Murray State 40-

Murray State vs. Belmont (Jan 31, 2026) Box Score - ESPN

Box score for the Murray State Racers vs. Belmont Bruins NCAAM game from January 31, 2026 on ESPN. Includes all points, rebounds and steals stats.

www.espn.com

 

[yoda]

SIU blew a 16-point 2nd half lead and lose at home to UIC

 

[houstonbrave]

Belmont destroying Murray by 30

 

[Da Coach]

Belmont lead by as many as 34 in the 2nd half, and beat Murray State 103-86
Stats- https://stats.statbroadcast.com/broadcast/?id=610756

Tyler Lundblade had 27 and a couple former Bradley recruits also had great games- Drew Scharnowski had 19 and Eoin Dillon had 15 off the bench.
Belmont (20-3, 8-2) shot 56% overall and 50% from three. It was Murray State's 4th loss in a row. They drop to 16-7, 8-4.

Standings

 

[tomahawk chop]

That loss at home to UIC really hurts.

 

[yoda]

Belmont lead by as many as 34 in the 2nd half, and beat Murray State 103-86

Nobody knows for sure, but there's talk (and even some documentation) that because of some very big donors, Murray State MBB built an NIL
reserve of over $2 million, maybe $3 mil-- more than double what most MVC schools had.
And they used it to land some really solid portal talent from Louisville, West Virginia & other schools,
plus land a couple top Euro guys.

If you read their fan message board they've been tickled pink most of this year about what their $$ has bought them-
BUT suddenly there's a sharp turn in the tone on their message board...fans grumbling that they're not getting what they paid for... LOL

Here are a few cut and paste comments from last night- seriously - these comments are NOT a joke...

"Holy hell we suck right now."
"Something is truly wrong with this team."
"This team has quit."
"I’m continuing to wonder if there really HAS been an issue with NIL payment"

 

[egib52]

Nobody knows for sure, but there's talk (and even some documentation) that because of some very big donors, Murray State MBB built an NIL
reserve of over $2 million, maybe $3 mil-- more than double what most MVC schools had.
And they used it to land some really solid portal talent from Louisville, West Virginia & other schools,
plus land a couple top Euro guys.

If you read their fan message board they've been tickled pink most of this year about what their $$ has bought them-
BUT suddenly there's a sharp turn in the tone on their message board...fans grumbling that they're not getting what they paid for... LOL

Here are a few cut and paste comments from last night- seriously - these comments are NOT a joke...

"Holy hell we suck right now."
"Something is truly wrong with this team."
"This team has quit."
"I’m continuing to wonder if there really HAS been an issue with NIL payment"

This was always going to be an inherent issue with NIL. When "kids" stop performing, fans will get pissed that they aren't getting their money's worth.

 

[BUBraves2006]

Murray State flat out can't shoot lately. Their season long effective field goal percentage is still at 54.6% (for reference, 51.5% is average in Div I) even after four terrible games. If you watched last game closely, it's been a combination of rushed wild shots and just straight clanks from three. But, I find it hard to believe that after being absolutely elite nearly all season offensively that they've somehow just forgotten how to shoot anymore and they're going to crater like Northern Iowa. This isn't the up and down nature of the Bradley roster that we've seen all season.

This is the correction to the mean for a team that doesn't defend well and that most had as third or fourth in the league coming in. I still think they probably finish second or third.