Shatel: Valley nosedive is no help to Jays

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If Creighton is a team player for the Missouri Valley Conference, the Jays will lose Wednesday night at Missouri State.

There are limits to loyalty. The Jays need the win to keep pace with Wichita State at the top of the Valley.

But suddenly, Valley hoops needs some juice. Missouri State has dropped two straight and has fallen to No. 80 in the RPI, according to RealTimeRPI.com. Northern Iowa lost two of three and fell to No. 30.

And instead of looking like a league capable of getting three or four bids to the NCAA dance, the Valley looks like it has a solid two.

So much for the perception that the Valley is strong. It's a fragile thing with mid-majors. If this were the Big Ten or Big 12, Missouri State losing to Evansville would be considered a sign of league strength and depth.

Like when MSU won at Creighton three weeks ago.

The RPI doesn't care about perception, though. And that's what has to worry Valley fans. This was supposed to be a year when losses in the league wouldn't hurt the NCAA contenders.

"We're the eighth-ranked league in the country for a reason," Creighton coach Greg McDermott said. "It's because of who we played and who we beat in the nonconference. When you get into league play against those teams, they're still good teams.

"I get frustrated sometimes when the national pundits say the BCS teams get better as the year goes on and they wouldn't have lost to a mid-major now. But we get better as well. So our league should stand up and stick out its chest and be proud of what we accomplished."

It's a double standard, and exactly why schools like Creighton can't ever do enough. And need to win against Missouri State on Wednesday.

• ESPN bracket guru Joe Lunardi's latest guess (Lunardi saw CU in person at St. Joe's) has the Jays as a No. 4 seed in Portland, having to beat Belmont and then the winner of Gonzaga-Oral Roberts to get to the Sweet 16. The Grant Gibbs Bracket.

Creighton will have to keep winning, and winning, to get a four seed.

Not much margin for error, especially if the Valley contenders keep dropping like a rock in the RPI.

By the way, Lunardi also has Missouri and Kansas coming to Omaha for second-round action. If that happens, and it certainly could, local officials will need to call in the National Guard. Draw a line down the center of the Old Market and hide the women and kids.

• The NCAA held a site inspection in Omaha last Wednesday in preparation for the second- and third-round tourney set for March 16 and 18. Two NCAA officials toured the CenturyLink Center and the eight team hotels with Omaha officials. Kevin Sarver, CU's associate athletic director and the tourney director for the Omaha event, said the NCAA types were "ecstatic" with the set-up.

They didn't even mind that Omaha still has 500 tickets left for the event. In fact, Sarver said, only one of the eight second-round sites (Pittsburgh) has sold out. The NCAA indicated that it thought Omaha would be the next city to sell out.

Five hundred left? Really? Where are all of those fans who complained about getting shut out four years ago? Maybe the NCAA needs to drop its prices. Dream on.

• Nebraska is shooting 75.5 percent from the line as a team. Bo Spencer (86.8), Brandon Ubel (80.0), Brandon Richardson (83.8) and Dylan Talley (85.2) all are 80 percent or better. So why can't this team drive to the hoop and get fouled?

After shooting two free throws at Wisconsin on Sunday, Doc Sadler said, "We've got to get tougher or something." Or something?

• Engrave the Lombardi Trophy. Nobody is beating the New York Giants.

Great quarterback plus great front four plus great coaching (Tom Coughlin is underrated in a market that loves to rip him). Eli Manning will find a way to score enough points against the Niners' ferocious defense. Then I want to see Eli vs. Tom Brady, Round Two.

• I'm glad Joe Paterno spoke to Sally Jenkins of the Washington Post.

I wish that other words had come out of his mouth. Paterno looked either ignorant or like he was trying to cover it up. Either way, his legacy is far less than before this came out. Then again, I guess we knew that.

• There doesn't have to be a playoff. A plus-one model should fit the bill. Here's how:

Let the major bowls pick who they want. Let the Rose Bowl have its Big Ten/Pac-12 party every year. Invite the Cotton Bowl to join the rotation at the head table.

The Cotton, Fiesta, Orange and Sugar can rotate who hosts the national title game every year (assuming that the Rose wants no part of it). The plus-one standings will be selected either by a BCS poll or by a blue-ribbon committee, à la the NCAA basketball committee. I'd lean toward the human committee.

After the major bowls are played, the committee or computer poll selects the final two teams to play in the championship game, the second week in January.

I'd still like to see a playoff because games played on home fields would have to be secured by how you do in the regular season, thus protecting the regular season.

• Give me your Civic Auditorium memories, please. Two categories.

One, sports. Your favorite games, moments, athletes you saw there: Larry Bird, Wilt Chamberlain, etc.

Two: concerts. A friend of mine said he saw Bob Seger open for the Doobie Brothers at the Civic. Another saw the Rolling Stones in 1964.

Please include any colorful stories that go with the concert. I'm going to rank the Civic moments in a later column.

• Fist bump: To UNO senior guard Mitch Albers, who is only 202 points from Dean Thompson's school-record 1,816 points in a career. Albers would have to average 20.2 points in UNO's last 10 games to catch Thompson. I'd like to see those two in a game of H-O-R-S-E.

Contact the writer:

402-444-1025, tom.shatel@owh.com

twitter.com/tomshatelOWH

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