Drake University women’s basketball players mob junior center Anna Miller (middle) after she made the game-winning bucket as time expired to give the Bulldogs the Missouri Valley Conference Hoops in the Heartland tournament title at Vibrant Arena at the Mark. Miller finished with 25 points in the victory.

Katelyn Metzger

The Missouri Valley Conference women’s basketball tournament is coming back to the Quad-Cities.

Sort of.

League officials announced on Thursday that the annual event, which features all 12 schools in a four-day gathering, will be rotating to three locales in the next three years.

Vibrant Arena at The Mark will host the 2027 event. Next year’s gathering will be at the Ford Center in Evansville, Ind., and the 2026 tournament will be at Xtream Arena in nearby Coralville, Iowa.

The Hoops in the Heartland tournament — won last month by Drake — had been held in the downtown Moline arena annually since 2016.

League officials had announced during last month’s tournament that those three cities had shown interest in hosting the event. MVC commissioner Jeff Jackson was intrigued by what the other two cities offered but admitted that the positive feedback from coaches, players and fans regarding the event in the Quad-Cities was tough to ignore in factoring the tournament’s future.

As it turned out, the lure of something new couldn’t be passed up.

“We’re excited about developing new relationships and growing the sport of women’s basketball in the region,” said Jackson in a release from the league. “The championship rotation model includes three great venues and three great communities who share the conference’s goal of prioritizing women’s basketball.”

While the nearly $2 million economic impact of the event will surely be missed, Scott

Mullen, executive director of the arena, took the decision in stride.

“It’s a very popular time of the year for the event business,” said Mullen. “It took me 10 minutes to fill the spot; we already have another event plugged in that slot.”

Still, Mullen is glad that the event will be in the upcoming rotation.

“We love hosting the event and it’s been a great event for the community and the building,” he said. “I understand they want to try some different sites and see what it’s like elsewhere. That’s their prerogative.”

Dave Herrell, president of Visit Quad Cities, wasn’t surprised by the decision to rotate the event after eight years here – the 2020 tournament was scrapped because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Still, he said there was a bit of disappointment.

“We knew that the conference office was having conversations with their leadership about the possibility of a rotation over the next couple of years,” said Herrell. “They reached out to us to see if we were open to one year. We were and are.

“Our goal was to lock them in for 2025-26-27, but they made the decision that was in their best interest in their member institutions to rotate it.”

Herrell said that VQC has offered any help it could provide to the Evansville and Coralville groups to make the event a success.

Still, the decision stung a bit.

“It’s been a good piece of business for us over a number of years. There’s an economic impact to it, there’s a brand visibility factor that goes into this,” said Herrell. “For us, from a strategy perspective, the ability to host a premiere women’s collegiate athletic event like this in our backyard is something that we pride ourselves in as an organization.

“I think Visit Quad Cities has been a company that has done it right and we’re proud of that partnership. We were hoping for three years, but the silver lining is that we’re getting one of the three.”

Herrell said that VQC continues to look into other collegiate sporting events to bring to the area and will do so this week when the Great Lakes Valley Conference women’s golf championship tees it up at Oakwood Country Club in Coal Valley this week. More information on that event can be found at GLVCsports.com/2024wgolf.

Of course, Herell said that bringing Hoops in the Heartland back to Moline annually is a major objective.

But for now, this stage in March Madness must be shared.

“We are thrilled to continue to provide our women’s basketball student-athletes with the opportunity to be showcased in a neutral-site, stand-alone tournament,” said Valparaiso President José D. Padilla, Chair of the Board of Directors of the Missouri Valley Conference in a press release. “The next three years will give us the opportunity to grow the Missouri Valley Conference’s national brand through visibility in new communities while affording our student-athletes the chance to experience new conference tournament venues. I know the conference office staff, member institutions, and our championship site hosts will work diligently to continue to provide a first-rate student-athlete and fan experience during our women’s basketball tournament.”