Missouri Western basketball has chance to solidify themselves in MIAA Tournament with three games remaining

Missouri Western was riding a three game winning streak into their two matchups, but faced two teams that were in the upper half of the MIAA conference. Against the Bearcats, the Griffons held the lead for 21 minutes and 14 seconds, but weren’t able to keep up with the pace against the defending national champions.

No team wants to suffer a loss, but the close contest with Northwest taught the team what it takes to compete with high ranked opponents.

“No matter what adversity they face, they’ve answered the challenge. That hasn’t always necessarily resulted in an immediate win, but it’s allowed this team to stay connected,” Martin said. “If used correctly, you learn more in the losses and we can take those and really learn and help those catapult us forward for the best interest of our program.

The Griffons were able to do positive things against Northwest, including a 9-0 run to close the half, limiting Diego Bernard, and getting more second chance points.

While the team’s energy and determination were high to try and upset the third best team in the nation, and take down a rival for the first time since 2013, Martin wants his team to have that mindset every game.

“In games like that, your margin of error is so small,” Martin said. “What we can learn from that is you can’t just choose to be maniacal about the details against the number three team in the country. It has to be that every single game.”

The energy will need to be kept to make a push for the MIAA Tournament. The next three remaining opponents are below the Griffons in the conference standings with Newman, Nebraska-Kearney and Pittsburg State.

While the teams, on paper, are below Western, Newman and Nebraska-Kearney have tallied wins against the ’Griffs already this year.

With the Lopers being a make up game, Western will have three games in one week, and are sitting in the ninth spot in the conference, a spot above the cut line for the post season tournament.

“Look, we have an opportunity to play three games in a week. If you get into the MIAA tournament or any time you’re in any type of tournament play, you better be prepared to play back to back games and play three or four games in a short time period,” Marin said. “So everything in life is about perspective.”

Missouri Western will be home Wednesday against Newman, Thursday against Nebraska-Kearney and Saturday against Pittsburg State.