Tournament tracker: MVC basketball teams headed to regular-season tournaments
Scheduling for the 2025-26 college basketball season is well under way.
Among those games are annual exempt multi-team events — regular-season tournaments — for which the NCAA has defined rules.
Here is a tracker for what tournaments the Missouri Valley Conference's 11 teams have joined for the 2025-26 season, as of Saturday, May 31, 2025. It will be updated as new information becomes available.
Bradley
Bradley will play in the Terry's Chocolate ESPN Events Invitational in the Orlando area Nov. 24-26 in the three-game Adventure Bracket. The field includes Bradley, Towson, Temple, Princeton, Rhode Island, Vermont, UC San Diego and Liberty.
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The Bradley Braves are 23-13 in such tournament play under coach Brian Wardle, and have won championships in the Cancun Challenge (2018), Don Haskins Sunbowl Invitational (2021), SoCal Challenge (2023) and Myrtle Beach Classic (2024).
Evansville is in the U.S. Virgin Islands Paradise Jam on Nov. 21-24. The field includes Evansville, Akron, Charleston, Green Bay, Iona, Oregon State, U-Mass and Yale. Evansville opens with a game against Oregon State on Nov. 21.
Murray State
Murray State is in the Cayman Islands Classic on Nov. 23-25. The format is three games, and the field includes Murray State, George Washington, McNeese State, Middle Tennessee State and four more teams as yet unannounced.
Northern Iowa
Northern Iowa in the Acrisure Series in Palm Desert, Calif. on Nov. 25-28. The 21-team field shows Northern Iowa, Cal Baptist, Grand Canyon, Colorado, Iowa, Loyola Chicago, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nevada, Saint Louis, San Diego, San Jose State, Santa Clara, Stanford, Tulsa, Pepperdine, San Francisco, Fresno, Ole Miss, Utah and Washington. Tournament format is undetermined at this time.
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Illinois State
Illinois State in the Terry's Chocolate ESPN Events Invitational in the Orlando area on Nov. 27-28. The Redbirds are part of the Imagination Bracket, which will be a two-game format. The field includes Illinois State, Charlotte, Richmond and Furman.
Drake is in the Emerald Coast Classic at Destin, Fla. on Nov. 28-29. It's a two-game format. The field includes Drake, DePaul, Georgia Tech and LSU.
MVC teams without a tournament
As of May 31, Belmont, Indiana State, Southern Illinois, Illinois-Chicago and Valparaiso do not have a multi-team tournament scheduled.
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Dave Eminian is the Journal Star sports columnist, and covers Bradley men's basketball, the Rivermen and Chiefs. He writes the Cleve In The Eve sports column for pjstar.com. He can be reached at 686-3206 or deminian@pjstar.com. Follow him on X.com @icetimecleve.
This article originally appeared on Journal Star: MVC basketball: Tracking 2025 regular-season tournaments in Valley
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