ST. LOUIS – Missouri State, which won its 14th Missouri Valley Conference women's basketball regular-season title, has earned the No. 1 seed in the MVC Tournament. The No. 17/23 Lady Bears finished the regular-season with a record of 20-2, 16-0 MVC. Missouri State will be the top seed in the MVC tournament for the 12th time in program history.
Drake (13-5 MVC) and Illinois State (12-6 MVC) are the second and third seeds, respectively. UNI (11-7 MVC) and Bradley (10-8 MVC) earned the No. 4 and No. 5 seeds, respectively.
This year's tournament - the 14th neutral-site event in the conference's history - begins on Thursday, March 11, at TaxSlayer Center in Moline, Illinois. The top seed has won the conference tournament in 19 of 34 seasons in which a tournament was played and a team that has won or shared the regular-season title has gone on to win the tournament title 22 times. Top seeds have six runner-up finishes. Teams seeded No. 2 have won the tournament five times and finished as the runner-up 12 times.
The tournament, which features nine games over four days, culminates on Sunday, March 14, with a the title game airing live on ESPN+ at 2:00 p.m. (CT). Both semifinals on Saturday, all four quarterfinals on Friday and the two opening round games on Thursday will also be available live on ESPN+.
Missouri State has won the most MVC Tournament titles, 11, of any Valley school. Drake has claimed seven tournament titles.
2021 Missouri Valley Conference Women's Basketball Tournament
Thursday, March 11
Game 1 -- #8 Southern Illinois (8-15, 5-13 MVC) vs. #9 Indiana State (5-14, 2-12 MVC), 4:30 p.m. [ESPN+]
Game 2 -- #7 Valparaiso (11-12, 7-9 MVC) vs. #10 Evansville (6-17, 2-16 MVC), 7:30 p.m. [ESPN+]
Friday, March 12
Game 3 -- #1 Missouri State (20-2, 16-0 MVC) vs. Winner Game 1, 11 a.m. [ESPN+]
Game 4 -- #4 UNI (14-11, 11-7 MVC) vs. #5 Bradley (14-11, 10-8 MVC), 2 p.m. [ESPN+]
Game 5 -- #2 Drake (15-10, 13-5 MVC) vs. Winner of Game 2, 5 p.m. [ESPN+]
Game 6 -- #3 Illinois State (15-6, 12-6 MVC) vs. #6 Loyola Chicago (10-12, 8-10 MVC), 8 p.m. [ESPN+]
Saturday, March 13
Game 7 -- Winner Game 3 vs. Winner Game 4, 1 p.m. [ESPN+]
Game 8 -- Winner Game 5 vs. Winner Game 6, 4 p.m. [ESPN+]
Sunday, March 14
Championship -- Winner Game 7 vs. Winner Game 8, 2 p.m. [ESPN+]
