The Missouri Valley Conference has released its 2010-11 men's basketball schedule, whose regular-season slate culminates with the State Farm MVC Championship in St. Louis (March 3-6).

The Missouri Valley Conference finished the 2009-10 season as the nation's 7th-rated conference, and The Valley was 90-39 (.698) in non-conference play.  That winning percentage is the 13th best in 103 years of Missouri Valley basketball and the third-best in 30 seasons.

The league will play defending national champion Duke (vs. Bradley) and Butler (vs. Evansville), while the non-conference slate features the second installment of the Mountain West-Missouri Valley Challenge Series, and the ninth annual BracketBuster series (Feb. 18-20).

Arguably, a 10-day stretch in late November and early December could provide the league the impetus for a multiple-bid NCAA scenario.  During that stretch, nine Valley schools will battle Mountain West members in the “Challenge Series.”  Notably, four Mountain West teams earned bids to the NCAA Tournament last year.

Also in that 10-day span, the league will have seven BCS-school opportunities, including games against Notre Dame, Iowa State, Iowa, DePaul, Nebraska, North Carolina and Duke.  The Tar Heels will visit Evansville on Dec. 8 in what will be the final season for Roberts Stadium.

All told the league will play 20 non-conference games against teams from BCS-football conferences, and will have an opportnity to meet several others within in-season tournament brackets.  The first opportunity, though, is in the season opener as two-time defending league champ UNI travels to Syracuse on Nov. 12. 

The MVC was 9-10 against the "Power Six" leagues last year, while only five of the 19 games in 2009-10 were at home (MVC was 4-1 in those games.)  Minus a 5-21 cumulative record against those Power Six in 2008-09, the league is 60-62 against those leagues since the 2004-05 campaign.

In all, MVC schools will participate in nine in-season tournaments, including the prestigious EA Sports Maui Invitational (Wichita State) and Dick's Sporting Goods Preseason NIT (Missouri State).