There’s nothing like jumping into the new year with a key home game against your biggest Missouri Valley Conference nemesis. Northern Iowa has been Missouri State’s kryptonite for years. Missouri State men's basketball coach Dana Ford has never beaten the Panthers at Great Southern Bank Arena.
But coming off the big pre-Christmas victory at St. Mary’s and a series of good practices after the team reconvened, Ford is upbeat four hours before tipoff as the Bears have an hourlong shootaround.
“I feel good about tonight,” Ford says.
Matthew Lee is set to return to the playing rotation. This is the first time all season that the entire roster is healthy and available at the same time. It all seems almost too good to be true. And you know what they say about that.
Northern Iowa races out to an early 13-point lead. While Missouri State rallies within 33-29 by halftime and eventually forges a one-point lead late in the game, the Bears seem a step or two slow all night.
Sure enough, Northern Iowa makes key plays down the stretch and wins it 64-62. The shortest player on the floor, Northern Iowa’s 5-foot-11 Bowen Born, grabbed an offensive rebound and scores with under two minutes remaining — as three Bears stood and watched — to give his team a one-point lead. A minute later, after a Bears’ missed shot, Bowen swished an open 3-pointer.
Missouri State has a chance at the end. Nick Kramer, who had an impressive game with 10 points in just his second appearance of the season, has an open 3-pointer at the buzzer that rims out.
Great Southern Bank Arena is hushed as fans file out. But it’s deathly quiet inside the Bears’ locker room. No music, no talking. Only a few murmurs and some sniffles before Ford walks in. His message is brief, with the emphasis on learning from the loss and getting better.
Ford blames the loss on himself for not having the team ready to go coming out of the holiday break. He speaks for less than a minute before everyone huddles for a quick prayer in the center of the room.
“This game is over and we can’t go back and change anything,” Ford says. “We’ll watch film tomorrow and focus on getting a win at Bradley.”
There’s little time to dwell on the defeat. The Bears’ schedule over the first half of January is brutal, with three road games over the next four starting with a trip to Bradley, considered a league contender, just three days away.
That’s why this home game was so important. That’s why this outcome is one that people could point to as pivotal as the season progresses. Losing a heartbreaker at home this early in the league schedule can break a team emotionally.
Will it play in Peoria? No
Clearly, the Bears are unable to put the Northern Iowa loss in the rear-view mirror at Bradley. This one is never close as Bradley posts an 86-60 victory with Missouri State doing little right in its least-competitive game of the season.
Falling to 1-3 in the Valley, the Bears are in danger of falling out of the race before it really gets started.
“We aren’t making shots,” Ford says. “That’s something we have to try and get back, through constantly working and creating for others. When you don’t shoot it well, sometimes it gets in your head a bit and we have to dig ourselves out of that.”
Perhaps most troubling is a 41-22 deficit in rebounds, the second straight game the Bears were dominated on the boards. That is a sure sign of missing toughness that had been a strength as recently as at St. Mary’s.
“That’s our identity and people are coming right for our identity,” Ford says. “We have to fight for it, to get it back. The only way to get it back is through hard work. We do have character. We will work hard and get it back.
“The bottom line is we are not the same unit that we were prior to Christmas. Sometimes, that has to do with the other team. Most of the time it has to do with your own self. That’s what we have to get figured out.”
A home game with Murray State is next, then two more on the road.
‘We're not guarding anybody'
There’s plenty of time to devote to basketball since the start of the spring semester remains eight days away. The first practice after the Bradley debacle finds Kramer on the court on a Monday morning, earlier than anyone else, shooting 3-pointers one after another.
As Kramer wraps up about 45 minutes of shooting, it’s Chance Moore’s turn to get up some extra shots. Moore, capable of being a prolific scorer, is 2-for-13 from the field and missed all eight of his 3-point attempts over the two previous games. Several other players join in, getting extra shots, before the start of practice.
It’s a grueling one. Over two and a half hours, the Bears spend considerable time with drills combining conditioning with offensive and defensive fundamentals. Some have players going one-on-one, in a 10-second game, one end of the court to the other. The match-up of guards Alston Mason and Matthew Lee is a doozy to watch.
Intensity is not a problem. Defense is.
“It's like we gave our defense away as a Christmas gift to somebody. We’ve got to get it back,” Ford tells the team.
Ford asks his team if the offense is that good or the defense is that bad? A couple of Bears say it’s some of both. But Mason shakes his head and pipes up.
“We’re not guarding anybody,” Mason says. “We’re not getting back (in transition). We’re not getting the right positions. We have to be better.”
After going about 10 more minutes, with the defense improving a bit, Ford blows his whistle and calls it a day. It’s 48 hours until tipoff with Murray State and the season is seemingly at a crossroads.
As practice concludes, Ford says the Bears have to get their confidence back that they exhibited while running their record to 9-4, mentioning the sweep in the Virgin Islands and the win at St. Mary’s.
“We are not playing like a Valley team. People are punking us,” Ford says.
Have the Bears bottomed out in the last two games? In a few hours, they’ll get a resounding answer on their home court against Murray State.
Coming up in Chapter 4:
The clock is ticking on the season and Bears players engage in a locker-room heart-to-heart as they search for answers. “It’s no different than in life. You’re gonna have some hard times. And these are hard times. … How we handle hard will dictate how we move forward,” Ford says.
Bears Insider Ch. 4>>>
An epic home court failure and a furious AD
