Missouri State women’s basketball has its best team under third-year coach Beth Cunningham and is starting to look reminiscent of the great teams in recent years that have gone on to play in the NCAA Tournament.
On a seven-game winning streak, the Lady Bears swept their weekend series against the Iowa schools, winning a thrilling four-point overtime game over Drake and beating Northern Iowa 81-45 in what was dubbed the team’s most important home weekend of the season.
The Lady Bears are a half-game out of the Missouri Valley Conference lead, having played one fewer game than the two one-loss teams at the top. MSU handed both their losses and are 4-0 against teams in the top six of the standings.
Missouri State women’s basketball appears capable of an NCAA Tournament run
Paige Rocca and Lacy Stokes helped deliver magical moments in their comeback win over Drake, giving it a familiar feel from the three teams that advanced to NCAA Tournaments since 2019.
What might have been the most impressive aspect of the weekend was the Lady Bears’ scoring balance. Six different players scored double digits in the win over Drake and four against Northern Iowa.
The development of younger players like Kaemyn Bekemeier and Lainie Douglas has been on full display. Sarah Linthacum continues to be one of the most efficient players in the MVC. Kyrah Daniels is showing signs of returning to her efficient shooting form. And then veteran leaders like Stokes and Rocca are doing whatever’s asked, whether it’s scoring, distributing or playing tough defense.
And you can’t count them out, even when the odds are against them in late-game situations, something that’s stuck to the Lady Bears program over the last six years over the span of three head coaches. It could come into play yet again when trying to win three straight games at the MVC Tournament.
Could Missouri State women’s basketball earn an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament?
The odds of an at-large bid appear to be slim.
When looking at the predicted brackets from bracketologists, the Valley is routinely a one-bid league, even though the top looks as strong as it’s been over the last decade.
According to Monday morning’s NET rankings, five teams in the Valley ranked in the top 100, with Murray State ranked 54th, Belmont ranked 56th, and the Lady Bears ranked 64th. Unfortunately, the bottom of the league is so bad that it is bringing the league down with four teams ranked 263rd or worse, with Southern Illinois bottoming out ranked 334 out of 362 teams.
Murray State often gets the Valley’s automatic bid in different bracketology predictions as either a 12 or 13 seed. No Valley team gets mentioned as one of the first eight teams out.
What remains on Missouri State women’s basketball’s schedule?
The Lady Bears have six games before their season-defining end-of-February road stretch, which will decide their Valley regular-season championship fate. All six are winnable, but the most challenging is a Feb. 2 game at Illinois State, the one team in the Valley’s top half the Lady Bears haven’t played yet. Emerging from the stretch no worse than 5-1 would be preferable.
The Lady Bears then play five consecutive games against teams in the top half of the league. Beginning Feb. 20, they play four straight road games against Northern Iowa, Drake, Murray State and Belmont before returning home to play Illinois State on March 6.
A Valley regular-season championship would be the Lady Bears’ first since 2020-21 when they finished league play undefeated in Amaka Agugua-Hamilton’s second year as head coach. This year, the MVC Tournament begins on March 13 in Evansville, Indiana. A top-four regular-season finish would put the Lady Bears in the quarterfinals on March 14.
This article originally appeared on Springfield News-Leader: What are Missouri State women’s basketball’s NCAA Tournament chamces?
