Same ol' Missouri State basketball? Wouldn't go that far (yet) after West Virginia loss
Get this — Missouri State looked really good for a half and probably should have secured a marquee victory but didn't after losing a close game in the end.
A familiar feeling swept over Bears fandom following their 67-59 opening-night loss over a depleted West Virginia team that was without potentially three starters. What seemed like a perfect scenario for the Bears to get a rare win over a Power 5 opponent was too good to be true.
The Bears couldn't get it done despite holding the Mountaineers to a stretch in which they missed 21 straight shots from the field. We're not going to go find out how often a team has lost when their opponent was that atrociously bad for a stretch but it probably doesn't happen frequently.
Some fans are going to be immediately turned off and think this season is going to be like the ones in recent years. The Bears might be good but not good enough.
We're not going that far yet.
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This wasn't a loss to Little Rock when the Bears were picked to win the league. This wasn't allowing 99 points in a loss to SEMO when two of the most talented players in program history were in the starting lineup.
This was a loss to West Virginia.
Forget its offseason drama that featured a Basketball Hall of Fame head coach getting run out of town because he couldn't keep his mouth shut or find an Uber instead of drinking and driving. Forget the overhaul of the roster or the players who are either suspended, ineligible or injured.
If the Bears won this game, it would have been celebrated as one of the bigger wins in Dana Ford's six years as head coach.
Give it a little time. There were things to like from the Bears' performance and there is still quite a bit of talent there. It's the first game and it was against one of the tougher teams they'll play all year. Maybe the at-large hopes for an NCAA Tournament are already gone but no one was really thinking that would be a possibility anyways.
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If the Bears lose a few more games like this, against what are perceived to be inferior opponents, go crazy. You should expect the Bears to beat a new-look Oral Roberts when they visit in Monday's home opener and they should compete for a championship at the Paradise Jam.
"It's the first game of the year and they came out to play with a lot of energy," Ford said during his postgame radio interview. "There were definitely a lot of positives, as well as some things that we need to clean up from both halves."
There was good, bad and ugly in this game. Here are a few observations.
Missouri State could be a really good defensive team
Ford loves defense and the first half should have him excited for what it could be. Even when the Bears weren't hitting their shots, they gave themselves a chance with effort on the defensive end of the floor.
Forcing 21 missed shots doesn't go without defensive effort. West Virginia was abysmal shooting the ball but holding those athletes and Power 5-level players to 4 of 32 from the field and six points in the paint doesn't go without the Bears doing something right.
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The second half was a different story. The Mountaineers weren't going to be held down for long as they went 18 of 31 from the field while making 6 of 11 shots from deep. They scored 22 points in the paint to the Bears' two.
Over the final 41 seconds when the Bears cut the WVU lead to two, they couldn't get a stop as the Mountaineers got a layup to fall before scoring on two dunks in the fastbreak after the Bears came up empty in response.
There's potential there but the Bears couldn't get it done.
The Bears' offense was very difficult to watch
It's not fun to watch a team chuck 3-pointers at will when they're not making them and had success inside the paint. We've seen this offensive approach before and it wasn't fun to watch then either.
The Bears' 29 shots from beyond the arc might have shown us what may be more to come. Maybe not. A year ago, the Bears took 29 or more shots from deep in four different games and only won one of them.
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"Obviously, we're playing faster this year and you can see how open we are in transition and we get the ball to guys in their sweet spots most of the time," Ford said. "I think when we get fatigued, we get a little stagnant. In our small lineup, when (Donovan Clay) was playing as the one wing with four guards, we got the ball wherever we wanted. Around the rim, they challenged some things and then we had some open looks and got transition from guys that can make shots that we didn't make.
"We still have to take those shots because they're open and we just have to knock them down. With all of that, it was still a two-point game with 41 seconds left."
Chance Moore led the team by going 5 of 13 from deep for a career-high 24 points. Alston Mason was 3 of 5 with 15 points. All others were 1 of 11 from 3. The Bears attempted 13 shots from inside the arc in the second half and made three of them.
MSU got no-shows from a few who are typically reliable
Matthew Lee looked like a player who was playing his first college basketball game in about a year. He's going to get better. After Ford said he would be limited to around 18 minutes, he played twice that.
Donovan Clay scored two points and was held 1 for 7 shooting. That's not going to happen often.
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These two will improve as well will the likes of freshman Tyler Bey, who scored seven points with six rebounds, along with Cesare Edwards who was in immediate foul trouble after stepping on the floor. The pair's development will be crucial for how this season goes.
For the Bears to be in a game at West Virginia when they got six points out of starters not named Moore or Mason is a bit of a surprise. These typically-reliable names will be better.
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 falls to West Virginia in season opener: Observations
