Northwest Missouri State- The Hidden Powerhouse by:Austin Goetsche

                                

                             Northwest Missouri State- The Hidden Powerhouse


When people think of the best college basketball teams, Duke, Kentucky, and Kansas come to the top of those lists. They have earned their status as a “blue blood” in college basketball for having success and making deep March Madness runs year after year. Although, there is one powerhouse that is not very well known among most casual college basketball fans, and they reside in the middle of rural Missouri.

Located in Maryville, Missouri, Northwest Missouri State University is a member of the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association, commonly known as the MIAA. The MIAA is one of, if not the best, D2 conference in all sports, year in and year out. In fact, recently, Fort Hays State, who is also a MIAA member, had a dominating win against Kansas State. 

In 2008, Northwest Missouri State hired Emporia State assistant coach Ben McCollum as their head coach. In his first year, the Bearcats went 12-15 overall and 7-13 in conference play. The next year was more of the same as they went 10-16 overall and 8-14 in the MIAA. The next year however, everything started to change in the right direction. Northwest Missouri State made an incredible jump from 10th to tied for 1st in conference play. Although they were eliminated in the first round in the D2 tournament, Northwest Missouri State had established itself as a D2 contender. The Bearcats missed the tournament the following year but made three straight D2 Sweet Sixteen appearances after that. In the 2016-17 season, they won the National Championship. Since the start of the 2016-17 season, the Bearcats only have six losses. They also picked up a national championship in 2018-19, going undefeated that year, and were the heavy favorites to win it all this past season before the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Usually, D2 teams hardly ever win a game or put up a fight when faced against D1 competition. Every year, a few D2 teams beat D1 teams, but those are usually the D1 bottom feeders. In the first game of the 2019-20 season, the defending champion Bearcats traveled to Cameron Indoor Stadium to take on the Duke Blue Devils. Duke won this game, but Northwest Missouri State made a huge statement here. The final score was only 69-63, which is impressive for any team to play against Duke, let alone a D2 team. Duke would later go on to be ranked #1 that season.

Northwest Missouri State has firmly established them as the best D2 basketball team, and maybe the best D2 school across all sports for that matter. In the 2020-21 season, the Bearcats are currently sitting on top of the rankings, a spot that they have gotten used to the past few years. Under Coach McCollum, the future for Northwest Missouri State looks incredibly bright, and you just have to wonder how many more championships they will win in the coming years. 

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