Fox Sports on SIU

More praise for Southern Illinois Basketball in particular, and the tough Missouri Valley Conference in general from Jeff Goodman on FoxSports.com.

The Bracket Buster Television Event will be upon us soon. It will take place on Saturday Feb.17th. SIU will have to go on the road to play this year, and the match-ups will be announced on Jan. 30th. The Salukis opponent will come from the following pool of teams:

Montana, Northern Arizona, Coastal Carolina, Cal Ploy, Cal State Northridge, Long Beach State, UC Santa Barbara, Delaward, George Mason, Georgia State, Hofstra, Northeastern, Virginia Commonwealth, Butler, Illinois-Chicago, Loyola (Ill.), Wright State, Youngstown State, Fairfield, Marist, Niagara, Rider, Siena, Akron, Buffalo, Eastern Michigan, Northern Illinois, Toledo, Western Michigan, Oral Roberts, Morehead State, Samford, SEMO, UT-Martin, Tennessee State, Tennessee Tech, Bucknell, UNC-Greensboro, UT-Chattanooga, Boise State, Fresno State, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico State, San Francisco

This fan's belief is that the opponent should be either Butler or Nevada. No other team on that list has the national profile nor the apptitude of the Salukis. On the road, SIU would be an underdog against either of those two teams, and give a very good idea just how far SIU could go in the NCAA Tournament come March. A match-up with either George Mason or Bucknell would have some significant mid-major cache as well. Any other match-up would seem to be a step back from a schedule that has SIU currently ranked 9th in the RPI.

Thanks (and source for Bracket Buster teams) goes to Rob Crow and The Dawg Blog.

By the way, after Saturday's eyepopping 20 point blow out at home of Missouri State, SIU beat Drake by 10 points at home tonight. Now the Salukis must go on the road on Wednesday to play Evansville (if SIU is to win the MVC title, they must win this type of game), then at a rejuvenated Creighton on Saturday. Then on Tuesday Jan. 23, SIU hosts Northern Iowa in an important contest broadcast on ESPNU at 9:00pm ET. It's a tough couple of weeks, for sure. But that's what happens when your conference is rated 4th in the country.