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Begins today in Cedar Falls:

Quarterfinals -- Thursday, November 24

No. 6 Indiana State
No. 3 Wichita State
5:00 pm CST (winner plays Missouri St on Friday)


No. 5 Illinois State
No. 4 Creighton
7:30 pm CST (winner plays Northern Iowa on Friday)

Wichita State and Illinois State win tonight's matches.

the WSU/INS match was sort of "ho-hum", I (as an impartial observer) thought, but the Creighton/ILS match was pretty exciting.

And I have a feeling that the semifinal matches should be pretty entertaining as well. MSU/WSU usually tends to be a battle. And the Redbirds seemed to really pick up momentum and confidence in the latter stages of their win over the Bluejays (plus, a decent-sized, and vocal, crowd of Redbird fans, along with their cheer squad, have made the trip to Cedar Falls). I do think UNI still has the more talented squad, but the Panthers are definitely going to have to maintain focus, else they'll have their hands full with a firey ISU team.

JayJ79 wrote:the WSU/INS match was sort of "ho-hum", I (as an impartial observer) thought, but the Creighton/ILS match was pretty exciting.

And I have a feeling that the semifinal matches should be pretty entertaining as well. MSU/WSU usually tends to be a battle. And the Redbirds seemed to really pick up momentum and confidence in the latter stages of their win over the Bluejays (plus, a decent-sized, and vocal, crowd of Redbird fans, along with their cheer squad, have made the trip to Cedar Falls). I do think UNI still has the more talented squad, but the Panthers are definitely going to have to maintain focus, else they'll have their hands full with a firey ISU team.

"U Do Think UNI Has The More Talented Squad?" God. Get ahold of you and your self-deprecating self.....I doubt that UNI will have any trouble with Ill St. That's about as a no-brainer as you could pick. The toughie is picking the MSU-WSU match.

Wichita State and Northern Iowa advance to the MVC tournament final.

pawball wrote:"U Do Think UNI Has The More Talented Squad?" God. Get ahold of you and your self-deprecating self.....I doubt that UNI will have any trouble with Ill St. That's about as a no-brainer as you could pick. The toughie is picking the MSU-WSU match.

Okay, you were right. The Panthers came out very focused, and firing on all cylinders (except for some lapses at game point) and were able to handle the Redbirds.


Unfortunately, I think Missouri State feels some sort of jinx whenever they enter the McLeod Center.

They're 0-5 against UNI in the McLeod ('07 through '11), last year they lost in the quarterfinals to Illinois State, and then this year they lost in the semifinals (after a quarterfinal bye) to Wichita State, which puts them at 0-7 in the McLeod.

I'm certain they aren't the only volleyball team to go 0-fer in our arena, it was just something that occurred to me after seeing them get upset in the conference tournament for the second year. And they're generally a pretty good team, so the streak kind of stands out.

That's interesting about the Bears at McLeod (although I'm not sure if anyone has won a conference match at UNI the past 5 years). Shocks played as well as I've seen them in recent years and Bears had no answers. If Shocks play like they did Fri, should be a great match this evening.

Very entertaining championship game. WSU played very well and I hope they get in the field.

strike00 wrote:Very entertaining championship game. WSU played very well and I hope they get in the field.

Agreed - congrats to UNI.

NCAA field just announced. From my quick glance at the bracket, Valley got three bids. Obviously, UNI with the automatic bid and a #6 overall seed. Wichita State and Missouri State received at-large bids. UNI is obviously positioned to make a deep run but hopefully Wichita and MSU can shake up their side of the bracket, too.