ST. LOUIS - The Missouri Valley Conference showed a lot of respect for Bryan Mullins at its annual basketball media day Tuesday.

One of two returning starters for Southern Illinois University's men's team, Mullins and the Salukis scored second place in the league's preseason poll. SIU got two first-place votes and 322 points in the poll by sports information directors, media and coaches, finishing right behind Creighton's 386.

With seven newcomers, the preseason all-conference point guard will be asked to lead one of the youngest teams in the Valley back to the NCAA tournament. SIU could play five freshmen and two sophomores in its top 10 this year.

"I wasn't too surprised," Mullins said. "I thought we would be two or three, probably. Preseason polls are preseason polls. We don't put too much into 'em. We've been three or four. We've been one, and we know it really doesn't matter how you start. It's how you finish, so, we're not going to take too much into it."

SIU was picked to win the league unanimously last year and finished third. Without Mullins, who succumbed to a stress fracture late in the season, the Salukis made the second round of the NIT before finishing 18-15.

Mullins, the league's defensive player of the year last year, and classmate Wesley Clemmons are the only two regular starters back from that squad. Senior forward Tony Boyle also started at least one game last season, but with juniors Christian Cornelius and Brandon Allen, the Salukis will enter 2008-09 with only six upperclassmen.

That includes senior Tony Freeman, an Iowa transfer, who has to sit out this season per NCAA regulations.

However, last season proved how preseason appearances don't always work out the way they're supposed to. Drake, picked ninth, won a school-record 28 games and became the first MVC team to sweep the regular season and tournament titles in the same season since 1998. The Bulldogs reached the NCAA tournament, lost on a last-second heave by Western Kentucky, then lost coach Keno Davis to Providence.

In Davis' place, former Arizona State assistant Mark Phelps takes over a Bulldogs squad that returns two starters.

"We were overwhelming favorites last year, and we finished third," SIU coach Chris Lowery said. "The whole point of that is the chase, and that's what makes it special. No matter where you're picked, it's the chase. It was Drake doing what they did. That was a phenomenal story, and, nobody would have ever dreamed it. And it happened."

Creighton returns three starters back from last year's 22-11 squad and got 36 first-place votes.

Illinois State, which swept SIU last season, received one first-place vote and was third. Drake, Bradley, Northern Iowa, Indiana State, Evansville, Wichita State and Missouri State rounded out the list.

Osiris Eldridge, a 6-foot-3, 190-pound Illinois State guard, was picked as the preseason player of the year.

"It's a good honor, but it really don't mean anything unless you get it at the end of the year," Eldridge said.

Drake junior forward Jonathan Cox, Creighton sophomore guard P'Allen Stinnett and Drake junior guard Josh Young joined Mullins and Eldridge on the preseason all-conference team.

Allen sidelined: SIU walk-on Brandon Allen had arthroscopic surgery earlier this week on his knee and will miss the next few weeks, Lowery said Tuesday. Allen, a 6-3 junior guard, came to the Salukis from Shawnee Community College in Ullin. SIU opens exhibition play Monday against Missouri Southern.

todd.hefferman@thesouthern.com / 351-5087