The 2021 Missouri Valley Conference men's basketball tournament, popularly referred to as "Arch Madness", was a postseason men's basketball tournament that completed the 2020–21 season in the Missouri Valley Conference. The tournament was held at the Enterprise Center in St. Louis, Missouri from March 4–7, 2021.
Despite the conference being the only conference to complete their entire conference schedule in the 2020–21 season, the tournament was marred by a positive COVID test in the Northern Iowa program prior to their quarterfinal matchup against Drake. Despite subsequent negative tests, contact tracing combined with St. Louis health protocols required UNI to forfeit the game advancing Drake to the next round.
Seeds Teams were seeded by conference record, with ties broken by the overall record in conference games played between the tied teams, then (if necessary) by comparison of records between the tying institutions versus the top team in the standings (and continuing from top to bottom of standings, as necessary, with the team having the better record against that team receiving the better seed). The top six seeds received openinground byes."MVC Basketball Regular Season Title Eligibility Standard" MVC-Sports.com. Retrieved 2021-02-25.
SeedSchoolConferenceTiebreaker 1Tiebreaker 2 1 Loyola-Chicago162 2 Drake1533 Missouri State1264 Indiana State1175 Evansville71140 vs.VU, UNI6 Valparaiso71113 vs.UE, UNI02 vs. LU,11 vs. DU7 Northern Iowa71113 vs.UE, VU02 vs. LU,02 vs. DU8 Bradley612 9 Southern Illinois513 10 Illinois State414
Schedule GameTime *MatchupScoreTelevisionOpening Round Thursday, March 415:08 pm#8 Bradley vs. #9 Southern Illinois63–73MVC TV28:08 pm#7 Northern Iowa vs. #10 Illinois State65–60Quarterfinals Friday, March 5311:08 am#1 Loyola-Chicago vs. #9 Southern Illinois73–49MVC TV42:08 pm#4 Indiana State vs. #5 Evansville53–4355:08 pm#2 Drake vs. #7 Northern IowaCanceled68:08 pm#3 Missouri State vs. #6 Valparaiso66–55Semifinals Saturday, March 6712:05 pm#1 Loyola-Chicago vs. #4 Indiana State65–49CBSSN8 3:05 pm#2 Drake vs. #3 Missouri State71–69Final Sunday, March 791:10 pm#1 Loyola-Chicago vs. #2 Drake75–65CBS* Game times in CST; rankings denote tournament seed.
Tournament bracket
Postseason History Multiple Bids
+ NCAA tournament MVC NCAA Tournament Teams 2021 (8) Loyola (Chicago) (11) Drake
Notes
References