By Bryan Bloodworth

ST. LOUIS – Preparing for this weekend’s Missouri Valley Conference Tournament is much different than preparing for a regular season game, according to Illinois State basketball coach Dan Muller.

“Tournaments are unique because you can’t just prepare for the first game,” said Muller, whose team meets Indiana State in the opening round Friday at Scottrade Center at 8:30 p.m. The pregame show begins at 7:30 following coverage of the Redbird Rally from the Brew House at Ball Park Village in St. Louis with Scott Laughlin on WJBC 1230 AM.

“You have to have your zone offense ready. You have to have certain things that you may see ready, even though you may not see them in the first game. It does help to play on Friday rather than Thursday to have that extra day of preparation.

“There’s an art, a mental preparation, to going into tournament weekend as far as handling the pressure because the truth is if you play bad your season might be over. There’s an added pressure to that, so being able to go and play free, confident and aggressive and understand how fun it can be to be there on Sunday that our guys experienced last year is important.”

The Redbirds are the No. 3 seed with an 18-13 record, while Indiana State is the No. 6 seed with a 14-16 mark.

“They’re extremely dangerous offensively,” said Muller, whose team split a pair of regular season games with the Sycamores. “They are plenty capable. They have seniors with pride like most teams. If we think this game is going to be like the last game (a 78-50 win at home) than we’re crazy. We have to approach this thing the right way to make sure we are as intense as we need to be on the defensive end.”

Indiana State coach Greg Lansing said the Sycamores will need a good offensive performance.

“We’re going to have to make some shots,” he added. “We have to keep them out of transition. They’re so good and so hard to guard in the half-court, but you can’t give them easy ones in transition.

“Obviously, they have talent everywhere. They’re very athletic and their skill level is much better. They don’t get credit for how skilled they are. I think Paris Lee has been a difference-maker. They have tough matchups across the board for us.”

ISU senior DeVaughn Akoon-Purcell admitted this year’s tournament is different than a year ago.

“It means a lot to me especially after last year coming up short,” he said. “We need to do a great job of preparing to go down there to handle business. Every possession, every play counts. You can’t take plays off.”

Junior guard Paris Lee has his own opinion about the tournament that ends Sunday with the champion earning the league’s automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.

“Defense is really going to be the key to whoever wins the tournament,” he said. “I think which every team locks in on defense the most is going to win – just let everybody know that it’s going to be a war.”

Bryan Bloodworth can be reached at [email protected].