The 2017–18

Missouri Valley Conference The Missouri Valley Conference (also called MVC or simply "The Valley") is the fourth-oldest collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference in the United States. The conference's members are primarily located in the Midwestern Unite ...

men's basketball season began with practices in October 2017, followed by the start of the

2017–18 NCAA Division I men's basketball season The 2017–18 NCAA Division I men's basketball season began on November 10, 2017. The first tournament was the 2K Sports Classic and the season ended with the Final Four at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas, on April 2, 2018. Practices offici ...

in November. Conference play began in late December 2017 and concluded in March with the Missouri Valley Conference tournament at

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St. Louis St. Louis ( , sometimes referred to as St. Louis City, Saint Louis or STL) is an independent city in the U.S. state of Missouri. It lies near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a populatio ...

Missouri Missouri (''see #Etymology and pronunciation, pronunciation'') is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territories by area, 21st in land area, it border ...

. With a win against

Evansville Evansville is a city in Vanderburgh County, Indiana, United States, and its county seat. With a population of 118,414 at the 2020 census, it is Indiana's third-most populous city after Indianapolis and Fort Wayne, the most populous city in S ...

on February 18, 2018, Loyola clinched at least a share of its first-ever Missouri Valley Conference regular season championship. With a win over

Southern Illinois Southern Illinois is a region of the U.S. state of Illinois comprising the southern third of the state, principally south of Interstate 70. Part of downstate Illinois, it is bordered by the two List of U.S. rivers by discharge, most voluminous ri ...

on February 21, the Ramblers clinched the outright MVC championship. Loyola defeated

Illinois State Illinois State University (ISU) is a public research university in Normal, Illinois, United States. It was founded in 1857 as Illinois State Normal University and is the oldest public university in Illinois. The university emphasizes teaching ...

in the championship game to win the MVC tournament and received the conference's automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. This season marked the first season with Valparaiso as a member of the conference. The Crusaders were invited to join the conference after

Wichita State Wichita State University (WSU) is a public university, public research university in Wichita, Kansas, United States. It is governed by the Kansas Board of Regents. The university offers more than 60 undergraduate degree programs in more than 200 ...

left the conference to join the

American Athletic Conference The American Athletic Conference (AAC), also known as The American, is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference in the United States, featuring 13 full member universities and 6 affiliate member universities that compete in t ...

. Loyola received the conference's only bid to the NCAA tournament and advanced to the Final Four before losing to

Michigan Michigan ( ) is a peninsular U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, Upper Midwestern United States. It shares water and land boundaries with Minnesota to the northwest, Wisconsin to the west, ...

Drake Drake may refer to: Animals and creatures * A male duck * Drake (mythology), a term related to and often synonymous with dragon People and fictional characters * Drake (surname), a list of people and fictional characters with the family ...

was the only other conference school that received a bid to a postseason tournament, receiving a bid to the CollegeInsider.com Tournament where they went 1–1.

Head coaches

Coaching changes

's fourth-year head coach

Ray Giacoletti Raymond Bryan Giacoletti (born April 14, 1962) is a former men's basketball coach, having served as head coach at Drake University, and The University of Utah. He played collegiate basketball at Minot State University in North Dakota from 1980 t ...

resigned on December 6, 2016 after the first eight games of the season. Assistant coach

Jeff Rutter Jeff Rutter (born January 28, 1965) is an American basketball coach. He currently serves as an assistant men's basketball coach at Western Michigan. Rutter also served as the interim head coach at Drake from December 2016 to March 2017. Coachin ...

was named interim head coach. Following the season, the school chose not to keep Jeff Rutter as head coach and hired

Niko Medved Niko Medved (born August 10, 1973) is an American college basketball coach, currently the head men's basketball coach at the University of Minnesota. Prior to becoming head coach at Minnesota, he was head coach at Colorado State University, Drak ...

, former head coach at Furman, as the Bulldogs' new head coach.

Coaches

''Notes:'' * All records, appearances, titles, etc. are from time with current school only. * Overall and MVC records are from time at current school and are through the end of the season. * Lottich and Moser's conference records only includes MVC play, not prior Horizon League records.

Preseason

Preseason poll

Source

Preseason All-MVC teams

Source

Regular season

Conference matrix

This table summarizes the head-to-head results between teams in conference play. Each team played 18 conference games, playing each team twice.

Player of the week

Throughout the regular season, the Missouri Valley Conference named a player and newcomer of the week.

Conference Awards

Source

Postseason

Missouri Valley Conference tournament

Teams were seeded by conference record, with ties broken by record between the tied teams followed by overall adjusted RPI, if necessary. The top six seeds received first-round byes. * denotes overtime period

NCAA tournament

The winner of the MVC tournament, Loyola, received the conference's automatic bid to the

2018 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament The 2018 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament was a single-elimination tournament of 68 teams to determine the men's National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I college basketball national champion for the 2017–18 seas ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:2017-18 Missouri Valley Conference men's basketball season Missouri Valley Conference men's basketball tournament