Bradley senior guard Duke Deen is the 2024-25 Missouri Valley Conference Preseason Player of the Year. (Photo courtesy: Bradley Athletics)
The 2024-25 NCAA men’s basketball season will begin in less than a month and just this week, it was announced that Bradley had been picked as the preseason favorite to win the Missouri Valley Conference.
The Braves received 46 first-place votes and 597 total points to outdistance Northern Iowa, which came in second in the voting among coaches and media members who cover the league.
The Panthers received two first-place tallies and 527 total points. Murray State received the remaining first-place vote and 473 total points to finish third.
Illinois State (4th, 397), defending MVC Tournament and Arch Madness champion Drake (5th, 388), and Belmont (6th, 373) were tightly bunched for the next three positions.
Southern Illinois earned 337 points for 7th in the poll, followed by defending regular-season champion and NIT runnerup Indiana State (8th, 207). Evansville (9th, 199), Valparaiso (10th, 173), Missouri State (11th, 116) and UIC (12th, 110) rounded out the poll.
The Braves finished third in the MVC regular-season race last year and were last picked to win the MVC in 1999-00. Since the MVC has been announcing a preseason poll prior to the 1985-86 campaign, Bradley has been picked as the league favorite four previous times (1986, 1988, 1996, and 2000).
The new season will officially begin on November 4, with a slate of games featuring 10 of the MVC’s 12 teams. League play will begin in December and last all the way into March, leading into Arch Madness — the MVC Championship Tournament, March 6-9, 2025, at the Enterprise Center in St. Louis.
Southern Illinois sophomore and native St. Louisan, Kennard Davis, Jr., was an MVC third-team preseason All-Conference selection. (Photo: Primo Greenway)
The MVC also announced its preseason All-Conference team this week.
Bradley had three players on the first- and second-teams, led by preseason Player of the Year choice, senior guard Duke Deen. The 5-foot-8 inch dynamo from Shreveport, La., averaged 13.9 points and 3.9 assists per game last year, while also connecting on 88 three-pointers.
Teammate Darius Hannah was also a first-team All-Conference selection, along with Northern Iowa’s Tytan Anderson, Illinois State’s Johnny Kinziger, Murray State’s JaCobi Wood, Valparaiso’s Cooper Schweiger — last year’s MVC Freshman of the Year.
The second-team members were Bradley’s Zek Montgomery, UNI’s Trey Campbell, Murray State’s Nick Ellington, and Illinois State’s Malachi Poindexter.
The third-team choices wee Southern Illinois’ Kennard Davis, Jr., a native St. Louisan from Vashon High, teammate Ali Dibba, Drake’s Cam Manyawu, Illinois-Chicago’s Filip Skobalj, and Drake’s Bennett Stirtz.
(Images courtesy: MVC-Sports.com)