Missouri State hoops beat the heck out of a D3 team in exhibition. Here's what we learned.

Unlike the Lady Bears exhibition from the night before, there was no drama when the Missouri State men's basketball team made its debut under the lights at Great Southern Bank Arena on Thursday.

A 100-51 exhibition win over Division III Westminster out of Fulton didn't provide a fraction of the challenge but it did present the 1,292 in attendance an opportunity to see what the Bears may look like heading into their sixth year under Dana Ford.

What they saw was a tempo in which the Bears hope to play this season. After having what was rated as one of the slowest offensive tempos in Division I a year ago, the Bears played faster in their first showing against someone other than themselves.

"Our pace is obviously going to be a little faster," Ford said. "I thought we did a pretty good job of trying to do some things that we practice."

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A quicker tempo created a welcomed viewing experience

The return of point guard Matthew Lee will allow the Bears to play the way Ford envisioned a year ago. A true point guard, according to Ford, will create faster play with the athletes Missouri State has on its roster.

According to KenPom's "adjusted tempo" rating, the Bears ranked 355th in the country last season. That is only ahead of eight other schools. It doesn't necessarily equate to wins and losses as Virginia and Saint Mary's are two schools that have had success playing the style but it's not what Ford wanted to do with the roster he had.

"You can say you want to do something but with all the transition in college basketball, you kind of have to adjust to our roster and it's always good to be able to do multiple things," Ford said. "I just don't like turnovers and I've had to mature and understand we're going to have some. But I really feel like this group will take care of the ball. It may not be in November, but by January-February, I think we'll be taking care of the ball."

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The Bears' offensive tempo won't necessarily be about getting shots up quickly. Ford wants to see, what he believes are fast players, run fast to where they're supposed to be. Getting into a half-court "slugfest" isn't how his roster was built.

The different lineups he can use with the likes of a bigger guard like Damien Mayo Jr. or versatile players like Donovan Clay, Cesare Edwards or N.J. Benson, can Bears adjust when needed?

"It's more so about just a mentality," Ford said. "Get to the next play, right? It's going to be a challenge for the staff to have an understanding that we may turn it over 14 or 15 times, right? We wanna be around 12 but hopefully, we make enough 3's to kind of offset that. These guys are fast and there's no sense of walking it up with them."

Cesare Edwards is a clear upgrade offensively

The other biggest takeaway from the Bears' exhibition matchup was the play of Edwards, a transfer from Xavier, who finished second on the team with 17 points on an efficient 7 of 9 shooting. He also grabbed three boards.

Edwards showed that he's going to be a clear upgrade offensively over what the Bears had a year ago in Jonathan Mogbo, who transferred to San Francisco.

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Edwards spaces the floor and showed that he's a willing shooter from deep. He took two 3's and knocked one down while also hitting a few 2's away from the basket while also having the ability to score in the post.

"I don't know if Cesare is ready to be a 17-point-a-game type of guy but he does give us elements of offense that we probably didn't have last year," Ford said. "Cesare can stretch the defense a little bit and he's gonna get better all year. He's gonna get better all year and we just gotta work on some other things like fighting fatigue and things like that. Both he and N.J. complement each other so well and we'll play them together as well."

How Ford envisions the rotation going forward

Ford said the Bears will start with a nine-man rotation with the hopes they getting deeper during the season.

The Bears' starters on Thursday were Lee, Moore, Clay, Benson and Alston Mason. A line shift about three minutes into the game saw four come in featuring Edwards, Mayo, Tyler Bey and Raphe Ayres. That appears to be the clear nine heading into Monday's opener at West Virginia.

The line shift was by design with the exhibition game and isn't something Ford anticipates going forward. Ford said Clay and Mason will likely play 30-plus minutes with Moore in the same range.

Bey, another standout from the contest after leading the Bears with 19 points on 6 of 13 shooting as a true freshman, is someone Ford wants to bring along and get him ready for conference play before the new year.

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"I wouldn't say we're deep right now but I do think we have the potential to be deep," Ford said. "Once we get Tyler adjusted to this level, we can be really deep because both Donnie and Tyler can play all over the floor and that gives you so many options.

"We're not as deep as it may seem but we do have the potential to become a very deep team. That's kind of what the plan is. We still hope to get some development out of these guys — even Cesare needs to be developed and Tyler Bey. Once Matt is 100% and Nick (Kramer) is back, we'll be able to get some loose ends with our depth."

Lee is currently on a minutes restriction and was held to seven against the Blue Jays. He's currently practicing every other day as he continues to rehab from tearing his ACL in the second game of last season. Ford said the current plan is to limit him to around 18 minutes unless he feels good and the game demands his presence. It's something Ford said the Bears will "navigate for a while at least until December."

Other notables

Davion Hill was held out of the game with a sore knee. It's nothing serious. Nick Kramer was out with an undisclosed injury and he's expected to be out for at least November.

Free throw shooting was improved with the Bears hitting 23 of 26 shots from the stripe. The Bears were 346th out of 352 in free throw percentage last season.

We can't put too much stock into what the Bears did on Thursday night. They did what they were supposed to against a team that might have had trouble with the ones that the Kickapoo and Nixa boys put on the floor. West Virginia will probably be a bit better than what the Bears faced on Thursday night.

Wyatt D. Wheeler is a reporter and columnist with the Springfield News-Leader. You can contact him at 417-371-6987, by email at wwheeler@news-leader.com or X at @WyattWheeler_NL. He's also the host of the weekly "Wyatt's World Podcast" on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and other podcasting platforms

This article originally appeared on Springfield News-Leader: Missouri State basketball beats Westminster in exhibition opener