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Wichita State guard JT Durley walked off the Koch Arena Court and made a bold statement, moments after scoring 19 points in his team’s upset of 20th-ranked Northern Iowa on Tuesday night. We’re back in the race,” he said. Durley may have been talking about more than just the battle for a Missouri Valley Conference championship.

The Shockers greatly enhanced their chances of receiving an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament, by ending Northern Iowa’s 15-game winning streak – if, of course, they don’t qualify automatically by winning the MVC tournament.

Over the years its MVC brethren and Wichita Stat have learned not to get their hopes up. It is a shame that a team with a 17-3 record in mid-January can not feel good about its chances of making the Big Dance, as beneficial as the victory could end up being,.

Since they were automatic qualifiers, Northern Iowa (2009) and Drake (2008) represented the MVC in the NCAA tournament the past two years. Not one at-large invitation was extended to an MVC school either season, and the league only received one such bid in 2007.

“We’re probably all biased,” stated Illinois State coach Tim Jankovich  “but we [league coaches] feel like we’ve been cheated pretty hard the last couple of years. Right now we’re just crossing our fingers that it doesn’t happen again.”

It should not.

Even though it isn’t quite the Conference USA or the Atlantic 10, the MVC is proving to be one of the top non-power conferences in the country this season.

MVC tournament championship squad and Northern Iowa (16-2) returns its top six players from last year’s regular-season. Adding a strong player in East Carolina transfer Gabe Blair, Wichita State (17-3) brought back all of its key pieces.

Missouri State is off to a 14-5 start under second-year coach Cuonzo Martin and Illinois State (13-5) touts one of the country’s better guards in Osiris Eldridge.

No one is expecting MVC to place four teams in the bracket, as it did in 2006. It does certainly deserve to send more than one. The bottom line is it is looking more and more as if the Missouri Valley Conference should receive multiple NCAA tournament bids.

Schools from non-Big Six leagues received eight at-large bids to the NCAA tournament, in 2007. That number was dropped to six in 2008 and, last year, only four non-Big Six schools received at-large bids.

That is a far cry from the 12 at-large invitations mid-major schools received in 2006.

“That was the year [the MVC] got four bids – and it was also the year George Mason made it to the Final Four,” said Jankovich  “Television ratings were lower than usual during the tournament that year. Maybe it’s a coincidence, but ever since that time, the number of at-large bids to non-Big Six schools has gone down and down and down.

“No one likes to talk about it, but we just don’t want to get the short end of the stick again. I mean, non-Big Six schools got four at-large bids last year. That just isn’t right.”

At least not when it comes to leagues such as the MVC.