The Illinois State Redbirds were picked to finish first in Missouri Valley Conference basketball this season. (Photo courtesy: ISU Athletics)

Cedric Williams
Senior Editor

The Missouri Valley Conference released its preseason men’s basketball poll recently and Illinois State was the team picked to win the league championship this season for the first time since the 2001-02 season.

The Redbirds went 22-14 last year, and finished the postseason by winning the Purple College Basketball Invitational Tournament. This year, ISU will be bringing back a number of key players from last season, including 2025 First Team All-MVC selection Chase Walker and Second-Team choice Johnny Kinziger.

Walker and Kinziger were also named to the 2025-26 Preseason Players to Watch List, along with teammates Jack Daugherty and Ty Pence. Illinois State’s roster will also include several new faces, including high profile transfers Cameron Barnes, Landon Moore, and Boden Skunberg, and the country’s 118th-ranked high school recruiting class, according to 247 Sports.

“I realize we’re a trendy team right now because we have guys returning,” ISU head coach Ryan Pedon said, “but the reality is, there’s a lot of good teams in our league, and a lot of good coaches, and outside of a couple (of teams) nobody really knows what each roster is going to look like.”

Illinois State big man Chase Walker, who averaged 15.2 points and 6.2 rebounds per game last season, will be back to lead the Redbirds this season. (Photo courtesy: ISU Athletics)

ISU received 34 first-place votes and finished with 487 total points to earn the league’s preseason top spot. Northern Iowa, which went 20-13 and finished third in the MVC last season, received eight first-place votes and totaled 442 points to come in second.

Murray State, with four first-place votes and 385 points, was third, followed by Bradley (370 points) and Belmont (344 points) for fourth and fifth place, respectively.

Each team in the 11-member MVC will play every other team twice (once home and once away) to formulate its 20-game conference schedule. When the regular season is over, the teams will be seeded based on standing for the annual Arch Madness, MVC Championship Tournament, which will be played March 5-8 at Enterprise Center in St. Louis.

The winner of the tournament will earn an automatic bid into the NCAA Tournament. Last season, Drake University won the MVC title for the third year in a row.

Four teams from the MVC qualified for postseason play last year. Drake in the NCAA Tournament, Bradley and Northern Iowa played in the NIT, and ISU in the CBI.

(Image courtesy: MVC-Sports.com)

The new hoops season will begin in just under three weeks, on November 3. Seven MVC teams will play that evening.

Illinois State’s season will begin days later, on November 6, when the Redbirds travel to Athens, Ohio to play the University of Ohio.

Every league team plays at least one MVC game before Christmas with the season tipping off with UIC at Belmont on Saturday, December 13. The final day of the regular season will be March 1, 2026, leading into Arch Madness in St. Louis.

2025-26 MISSOURI VALLEY CONFERENCE BASKETBALL STANDINGS

SchoolConf.CPct.OverallPct.Streak
Belmont0-0.0000-0.000
Bradley0-0.0000-0.000
Drake0-0.0000-0.000
Evansville0-0.0000-0.000
Illinois State0-0.0000-0.000
Indiana State0-0.0000-0.000
Murray State0-0.0000-0.000
Southern Illinois0-0.0000-0.000
Illinois-Chicago0-0.0000-0.000
Northern Iowa0-0.0000-0.000
Valparaiso0-0.0000-0.000