Judging be the e-mails and calls to local sports talk radio shows as well as tweets by fellow Missouri State fans, I’m a lot less interested in this whole bubble watch and bracketology thing. I’ve paid as little attention to it as possible. Spoiler Alert: The Bears are highly, highly unlikely to be included in [...]
Friday Soundtrack, or Fight for vict’ry
It’s Game Day. Arch Madness – the Missouri Valley Conference’s men’s basketball tournament – tipped off last night in St. Louis and Missouri State joins the fray today, at noon, playing Southern Illinois for the right to advance to the semifinals. That’s the inspiration for this week’s Friday Soundtrack. The song is best known as [...]
Arch Madness Bracketology
It ranks as probably the best gem the legendary George Wilson dropped on me during my years covering his College of the Ozarks Lady ‘Cats: “It’s hard to beat a team three times in one season…then again, sometimes it’s not.” Let it sink in for a second, then note this: If Wichita State or Missouri [...]
Reflections on Missouri State’s basketball championship
The date was March 1, 1990. I’d been 12 years old for all of one month when the Southwest Missouri State Bears defeated Northern Iowa 94-86 in overtime at Hammons Student Center to wrap up another Mid-Continent Conference championship. The Bears went to the NCAA Tournament that year, falling to North Carolina – my [...]
Who were those Bears?
I’ve mellowed a bit in my 30s. I don’t get as worked up about my favorite teams as I used to (though I still really don’t like Wichita State). That said, I’m incredibly bummed about Mighty MO State’s 77-65 loss at Evansville Feb. 2. This was the bad loss that the Bears had to avoid. [...]
Is close the new normal for Missouri State?
It’s been a couple of days now, but I wanted to share some thoughts on Missouri State’s close shave at Drake. The Bears – tell me if this sounds familiar – struggled, and actually trailed a good portion of the game, before rallying to win. The final score was 73-70. Not the result a lot [...]
When is a foul not a foul?
Much has been said, on Twitter and across the internet, about the and-1 Jake Kelly got to help lift Indiana State past Missouri State 70-69 Wednesday night in Terre Haute. I honestly don’t have anything new or interesting to say about it, but the whole situation has reminded me of a conversation I had many [...]
Okay, that one stung a little bit
It had to happen eventually, and this was a pretty crummy way to go. In some ways I prefer a loss by 10 points than one like Missouri State suffered at Indiana State to break the Bears’ nine-game winning streak. I’ll save my dissertation on “A foul is a foul is a foul” for a [...]
Wins are like girlfriends…
Troy University football coach Larry Blakeney has said it better than anybody: “Wins are like girlfriends. They’re not all gonna be pretty.” True dat, Larry. True dat. So I’m not at all concerned that Mighty MO State had to sweat a little bit in a 64-51 Missouri Valley Conference win over Southern Illinois at JQH [...]
Senior class powers Mighty MO State past Wichita
It’s been more than 24 hours and I am still riding the buzz achieved while sitting in my car, in my brother’s driveway, with my brother and his wife, listening to Missouri State knock of Wichita State 59-56 Jan. 9. It’s their first win there since 2007 and – at 5-0 with wins at Northern [...]
