Life in the Valley

Indiana State Again Top-Seed for Valley Tournament

After taking 2 out of 3 over visiting Evansville this weekend, the Indiana State Sycamores have won the Missouri Valley Conference regular-season crown for the 2nd straight year and will be the top seed in the upcoming Valley Tournament. That means Indiana State’s tournament will start on Wednesday, May 22, in Evansville. That fact has seemed certain for a while, but once the Sycamores took the Friday & Saturday games from UE in Terre Haute, and UIC lost to Illinois State Sunday, the top seed was sewn up – even though UE did manage a 7-6 win at Indiana State n Sunday.

Let’s expand on that and look around the conference in this week’s Monday 9:

1. What About the Rest of the Top 4? The first order of business is deciding the rest of the top-4 seeds, teams who avoid having to play the first Tuesday of the Valley tournament. Right now, UIC and UE are tied for 2nd at 15-9. Just 1 game back are Murray State and Illinois State at 14-10. One of the Flames or Purple Aces at least will likely be in the top 4 (barring some crazy tiebreaker scenarios) as they play each other in Evansville this weekend. Murray State is on the road at Bradley (6-18 MVC), while Illinois State is home to Belmont (11-13). There is a scenario where 4 teams tie for 4th place at 14-13. So if you love chaos, root for this:

• Bradley sweeps Murray State; Racers drop to 14-13.
• Belmont sweeps Illinois State; Bruins up to 14-13; Redbirds down to 14-13.
• SIU sweeps Missouri Stae; improves to 14-13.

While unlikely, if you’re thinking ahead to this like I am, here are how the teams did against each other. Murray State went 4-5; Belmont is 3-3, with the series against the Redbirds this weekend. A sweep would get them to 6-3 vs. the group. Illinois State would fall to 4-5. SIU is 4-5. Depending on how the MVC settles tiebreakers of more than 2 teams were seeding, this would appear to give Belmont a road (albeit a curvy, unpaved, mountainous trail) to the 4 seed.

2. Indiana State Holds at 20: The Sycamores (36-11, 19-5 MVC) remained ranked 20th in the latest D1Baseball.com Top 25, which was released Monday morning. To be ranked at all, as the Sycamores have been for the last few weeks, is an amazing accomplishment in the first place when you consider what’s in front of them.

SEC teams take up the first 3 spots (Tennessee, Kentucky, and Arkansas) and 4 of the top 5 with Texas A&M 5th. ACC teams check in 4th (Clemson) then 7th, 9th, 10th, and 11th (North Carolina, Wake Forest, Florida State, and Duke). FSU and Duke only dropped 2 spots each despite 2-2 weeks and losing weekends. In front of Indiana State, those 2 conferences are also represented by Mississippi State (16); N.C. State (17); and Virginia (18). Among non-ACC or SEC schools, Indiana State is the 7th highest-ranked team, behind Oregon State (6); Oklahoma (12); East Carolina (13); Arizona (14); UC-Irvine (15); and Oklahoma State (19).

Fourteen of the top 25 teams are from the ACC or SEC. That leaves nearly 300 schools fighting it out for 11 spots in the rankings. Unlike maybe some other sports, it means a lot to be in the top 25 in college baseball, because it’s pretty rarified air for most programs in the country.

3. Let’s Talk About RPI: The picture completely changes when you look at the RPI, also at D1Baseball.com. Indiana State’s Sunday loss to Evansville did cost the Sycamores 1 spot, down to 10. Indiana State is benefiting in these rankings from several factors – notably, a strong non-conference schedule ranking of 26, a 20-9 mark in games played away from Terre Haute, and they are 10-8 combined against Quad 1 and Quad 2 opponents. Only 9 of Indiana State’s 36 wins have come against bottom-level Quad 4 foes, where even wins can hurt your ranking. However, Indiana State’s MVC finale this weekend is at Valparaiso, who are 232 (of 305) in RPI right now. Even a sweep probably doesn’t much bolster their case for a national top-8 seed. An impressive roll through the Valley Tournament will be necessary with some upsets elsewhere.

Evansville’s win over Indiana State Sunday gave it a 9-spot boost to 96, making for a top-100 clash this weekend between the Purple Aces and UIC (89). Murray State has the 2nd-highest RPI in the MVC as of today at 74.

4. Looking at the Race for #8: Going into the weekend, it looked like there might be some drama near the bottom of the MVC standings to see who would be the 8th and final seed for the Valley Tournament in Evansville in a week or so. That dissipated a good bit Sunday, when Missouri State blanked Belmont, 12-0. The Bears broke open a scoreless game after 3 innings with 12 runs over the next 4 frames for a run-rule shutout. And they did it the Bears Way, hitting 4 homers as Nick Rodriguez, Caden Bogenpohl, Zack Stewart, and Logan Chambers all went deep. Stewart’s homer was his 20th of the season, while the Bears now have 5 players with at least 11 big flies – and 100 as a team.

Jason Schaaf threw just the 4th complete-game shutout of the MVC season, walking 1, striking out 4, and allowing 3 hits on a minuscule 78 pitches (3.71 pitches per out – Greg Maddux-level efficiency).

Missouri State (20-31, 9-15) is now 3 games clear of both Bradley and Valparaiso for 8th place and need just 1 win vs. SIU to secure their spot in what would be their penultimate Valley tournament.

5. Life Beyond the Valley: With Missouri State’s pending exit from the Missouri Valley to Conference USA for the 2025-26 academic year, I thought it would be worth looking to see how other teams who have left the Valley in recent years have fared in their new homes. Of course, with Creighton and Wichita State, their moves weren’t really fueled by baseball. Whereas Dallas Baptist was a different animal. But the landscape of college baseball is certainly affected by this era of conference realignment and non-geographic nonsense, so let’s look at it.

Creighton: The Bluejays left the Valley after the 2013 baseball season for the Big East, where they still reside today. They’ve been successful in terms of wins and losses in that time, having only 1 sub-.500 season (2017). The 2019 team 41-13 and went to Oregon State for a regional, but failed to advance. But that’s the Bluejays’ lone NCAA trip since leaving the Valley. Creighton had made a regional 4 times in the 9 years preceding their move. The MVC had been their lone conference home before going to the Big East for basketball.

Wichita State: The 2017 season was the last for the Shockers in the MVC, a long-ago national power that was fading into mediocrity when it left for the American Athletic Conference (AAC), having missed regionals 4 straight years after their previous appearance in head coach Gene Stephenson’s final season (2013). Wichita State enjoyed a renaissance in men’s basketball during the 2010s, making the Final Four in 2013. Their move was certainly basketball driven, as well. But in terms of baseball, the pastures – they ain’t been greener. The Shockers, 7-time visitors to Omaha and 1989 national champions, still haven’t been back to regionals since 2013. They won’t make it this year, either, unless they win the AAC Tournament.

Dallas Baptist: The Patriots spent 9 years in the Valley for baseball and went to regionals every year but one. The 2021 made it to Super Regionals before bowing out. Dallas Baptist has never been to the College World Series. Last year’s team, their first in Conference USA, saw the Patriots go 47-16, but they couldn’t get out of the Stillwater Regional. Dallas Baptist is 38-12 this season and headed back to regionals. They were a successful program looking for more challenges, I guess, and it’s too small a sample size to really tell how the move has worked out. They’re in that discussion with East Carolina as the best program never to make it to Omaha.

6. Have a Weekend, Auggie: Illinois State’s Auggie Rasmussen was a thorn in the side of the UIC Flames over the weekend, to stay the least. Rasmussen raised his season average to .298 and now has 15 homers on the year after going 5-for-12 with 6 runs, 7 RBIs, 3 homers, and 2 doubles as the Redbirds took 2 of 3 from UIC. Rasmussen, who was hitting just .256 after a surprise loss to Western Illinois on May 1, has gone 12-for-24 (.500) in the 6 games since with 5 homers and 5 doubles, scoring 12 runs, and driving in 15. He had 2 doubles, a homer, and 5 RBIs in a win over Southern Illinois on May 5 that finished off an Illinois State sweep. In 2 seasons at Illinois State, Rasmussen has 106 career hits, 25 homers, 28 doubles, 89 RBIs, and he’s scored 79 runs. He’s 1 away from tying his mark of 29 extra-base hits from last year, in 70 fewer plate appearances.

7. UE’s Weekend of Almost: Evansville and Indiana State played 3 excellent college baseball games over the weekend, the first of which was live on ESPNU Friday. Indiana State captured the first 2 games by scores of 5-4 and 6-4, before the Purple Aces took a 7-6 decision on Sunday. But what will frustrate UE (29-22, 15-9) is that they were in all 3 games with a chance to win them. That seems tough to say against an opponent in Indiana State that has won 18 straight conference series. But this was no smackdown by any means. Consider the 2 losses:

Friday, UE scored 3 in the 5th inning to erase a 1-0 deficit and then scored in the 8th to take a 4-2 lead. Kenton Deverman had pitched 7 strong innings, striking out 6, putting the Purple Aces in position to win the game. But the Sycamores got to starter turned reliever (for the weekend anyway) Shane Harris for 3 runs in the 8th, with Adam Pottinger’s RBI single turning out to be the game-winning hit.

On Saturday, the teams traded 5 runs in the 1st inning with the Sycamores taking a 3-2 edge. But an Evan Waggoner single and Kip Fougerousse homer in the 4th gave the Purple Aces a 4-3 lead. Fougerousse went 5-for-5 Saturday with 3 RBIs. Again, however, the Sycamores responded, as Pottinger homered to tie it in the bottom of the frame. In the 5th, Luis Hernandez homered to give Indiana State the lead for good. UE had 7 base runners from the 5th inning on and couldn’t bring any of them home.

None of this is to stay that Evansville will be the team to slay Indiana State in the Valley Tournament. But the Purple Aces did take the Sycamores to the limit in last year’s event at Terre Haute, and UE hosts this time around.

8. MVC Awards: Drew Vogel of Murray State is the MVC Player of the Week, while Indiana State’s Zach Davidson is the MVC Pitcher of the Week, the Conference announced Monday. Vogel had a memorable week, highlighted by his 15th-inning grand slam that vaulted Murray State past Ole Miss, 12-9. Vogel, a redshirt junior from White House, Tenn., wasn’t done, however. In the Racers’ weekend series vs. Valpo, Vogel went 8-for-15 with 4 runs, 7 RBIs, 2 doubles, and 3 homers, giving him 20 for the season. Vogel is 14-for-27 (.519) in his last 5 games, all Murray State wins. Vogel is hitting .343 on the season with 56 runs and 60 RBIs.

Like Vogel, Davidson had an outing to remember in a big game in Friday’s 6-4 win for Indiana State over Evansville. Davidson came on to replace Brennyn Cutts in the 5th inning, and proceeded to get the next 13 outs – 10 by strikeout – holding the Purple Aces scoreless on 3 hits. Davidson, a senior from Hartsburg, Mo., has struck out 18 in his last 2 outings – over just 8 2/3 innings. He fanned 8 in 4 1/3 innings vs. Belmont on May 4. Since the start of April, Davidson has made 7 appearances, going 16 innings, only allowing 9 hits and 6 runs (4 in a 1-inning stint vs. Bradley), and 5 walks with 31 strikeouts. He’s now fanned 58 on the season in just 39 innings and carries a 3.00 ERA.

9. This Week’s Mid-Week Madness: Most notable among Tuesday’s slate is a chance for the Belmont Bruins to take on the #1 team in the country, last he Bruins visit Knoxville to take on Tennessee. All the midweek games are Tuesday this week since the final weekend conference series of the season start Thursday.

Here’s this Tuesday’s lineup:

Indiana State at Ball State, 2 p.m., ESPN+
Valparaiso at Northwestern, 2:30, B1G+
Alabama A&M at Murray State, 3, ESPN+
Belmont at #1 Tennessee, 4, SEC Network+
Eastern Illinois at Illinois State, 5, ESPN+
Evansville at Austin Peay, 6, ESPN+
Bellarmine at Southern Illinois, 6
Oral Roberts at Missouri State, 6:30, ESPN+