Incredibly, Loyola Chicago slipped to the 4-seed for the Missouri Valley Tournament. The Ramblers had a chance to win the conference outright, but lost on the final day of the regular season, 102-96 to Northern Iowa in overtime, then fell victim to tiebreakers. I think they should still be considered the favorite to win this particular tourney.

In the quarterfinals, they’ll face Bradley, who is the 5-seed. Neither team had to win to get here. Bradley finished the regular season at 17-13 SU overall, 11-7 in conference play. Loyola was 22-7 SU overall, 13-5 in conference play.

The two regular season meetings were both won by the home team. Loyola won 78-71 in its gym, only for Bradley to return the favor in a much lower-scoring game, 68-61. It will be interesting to see how things play out here in St. Louis.

This seems like a low total. Not saying that just because of how high-scoring Loyola’s last game was (and it was 85-85 at the end of regulation). But both of these squads’ games have averaged just over 136 points over the course of the whole season.

Loyola shoots nearly 39% from three and is 13-4 Over this year when the total falls between 130 and 139.5. They have topped 80 in regulation each of the last two games. Bradley should score enough here as well; they’ve gone Over six of the last seven times they’ve been an underdog.