Snubbed Part 2: Why Barry Hinson told Missouri State that it was going to the tournament

Every single night the Bears took the floor, they felt like they were walking into a high-level game against teams with professional players on the other side.

The Valley was in the midst of its glory days. In 2005, the league tied its record by sending three teams to the NCAA Tournament. Over the previous seven years, it had sent at least two each year.

With the talent back in the league, and the buy-in from coaches to build their schedules into at-large quality slates if they got it done on the court, there was an opportunity to break the record and have its best season to date.

“I think our athletic administrators and coaches pulled together with the notion of strategic scheduling and didn’t want to play a lot of bad teams,” then-MVC Commissioner Doug Elgin said. “Coaches understood it. The ADs executed the plan. The reality of that year was that the Valley wasn’t a mid-major and deserved five bids that year.”

Snubbed Part 1: Behind Barry Hinson's hiring and how he built the 2005-06 MSU Bears

Southern Illinois entered the year as the defending league champions. The Salukis were in the middle of their glory days which saw them go to the NCAA Tournament six consecutive years while being led by three different head coaches.

Wichita State had the league’s best player. Paul Miller won the Larry Bird MVC Player of the Year honor following the season by averaging 13.1 points and 6.6 boards per game. The Shockers’ regular season championship and NCAA Tournament appearance in 2006 were the program’s first since 1988.

Northern Iowa was coming off two-straight NCAA Tournament selections as it played its final season under Greg McDermott. The Panthers were led by Ben Jacobson, Grant Stout and Eric Coleman — each averaged 11.5 points per game or more.

Creighton, under Dana Altman, was also destined for a big season. The Bluejays were coming off an NCAA Tournament appearance and had made it six times under Altman to that point. They were led by Johnny Mathies and future longtime NBA player and Springfield native Anthony Tolliver.

Flying under the radar was Bradley, which hadn’t made the tournament since 1996 nor had a winning record at any point under Jim Les at the time. The Braves had a top recruit entering his senior year in Peoria native Marcellus Sommerville and a future NBA first-round talent in Patrick O’Bryant on the roster.

Nobody in the nine-team league was a pushover that year.

“There wasn’t a night off,” Bears center Drew Richards said. “Even a team like Evansville, which really struggled at times, had the talent to beat anybody in that league. Every team had high-level, quality players. Every game you stepped on that floor, you felt like you were walking into a high major type of atmosphere with high major talent on the floor.”

After going 7-1 in non-conference, the Bears fell at Creighton by 22. They rebounded by winning three straight. Early conference-season losses included defeats to the Bluejays, Northern Iowa and Wichita State — three of the top five teams in the league.

By late January, a game at Bradley saw the Bears make a run late but they ran out of gas. They were losers of three of four with nine games to go.

It was time for the Bears to come together as a group and refocus.

The coaching staff changed their approach to practices. When they had gotten sluggish over the mid-season lull, Bears head coach Barry Hinson and the staff decided to loosen things up and bring a different type of energy.

“They found a way to make it fun,” forward Dale Lamberth said. “We got some things squared away through film and in the locker room. We shortened practices and we kind of rallied as a group in the locker room and said ‘This isn’t how we want our season to play out.’”

Fun followed the Bears to the floor.

The Bears won their next two games by 22 points or more before beating the Braves at Hammons Student Center. Their final loss of the regular season came in a two-point defeat at Southern Illinois in which the Salukis scored the go-ahead basket with 5.2 seconds left on the clock. The Bears responded by beating a ranked Northern Iowa team on the road.

A win against Evansville set up a BracketBusters matchup at Wisconsin Milwaukee.

“That was such a big game,” Hinson said. “We were underdogs and we weren’t supposed to win. They capped it as whoever wins this game is gonna play in the tournament.”

Missouri State came out hot and at one point held an 11-point lead that was cut down to three with 1:05 left. The Bears held on by hitting their shots from the foul line. Forward Nathan Bilyeu made 10 of his last 11 free throws to finish with 16 points while guard Blake Ahearn added 18.

The victory was thought of as one that would help the Bears’ at-large chances if they didn’t win the automatic bid at Arch Madness.

“Any time you get a chance to play a team like this, on the road, and come out and compete like this, it shows what we’re made of,” Ahearn said after the game.

The locker room was fired up afterward. Although they were focused on the next game, the Bears had it in the back of their minds that they were closer to their ultimate goal.

So close, in fact, that their head coach thought it was a certainty.

“We told them at the end, right there in the locker room, ‘we’re going to the NCAA Tournament, there’s no doubt in my mind. We’re going now,’” Hinson said.

"It was a good team and a tough environment," Richards said. "I do remember (Hinson) telling us that and I think we were all a little surprised. I thought that we all thought that we had a little bit left to do but we were surprised when he said it. I don't think it affected our game. I think it was more that he was trying to use it to let us know that we were an NCAA Tournament-level team and that 'let's keep producing at this level.'"

Hinson’s confidence didn’t have a reason to waver during the final two games of the regular season. An 11-point win at Illinois State followed before a memorable senior day that had fans camping outside Hammons Student Center for a chance to watch the Bears play Creighton.

Seniors Kellen Easley and Deke Thompson, the two leaders of one of the best Missouri State teams in the 21st century, were honored in front of 9,119 fans decked out in white to commence a party that lasted all night.

“That was very special,” Easley said. “It was possibly my last home game and I just wanted to lay it out on the floor and give everything. I think the younger guys knew to play their hardest because we did not want to lose it at home. It was awesome, it was just awesome to bring the basketball community in Springfield together.”

Easley scored a team-high 18 points with 10 rebounds. Thompson added 12 points off the bench and the Bears avenged their 22-point MVC-opening loss at Creighton with a 60-54 back-and-forth win to conclude the regular season.

The Bears ended the game shooting 37.3% from the field while holding the Bluejays to 35.4%. The back-and-forth game gave the Bears their 20th win of the season and a three-seed in the MVC Tournament. It was their fifth-straight win and eighth of their last nine.

“This game was a lot like my first prom date, not very pretty,” Hinson said after the game. “And that prom date was not my wife.”

Missouri State thought it would be enough, no matter what happened in St. Louis. But that wasn’t pretty either.

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 Twitter at @WyattWheeler_NL.

This article originally appeared on Springfield News-Leader: Why Hinson told MSU it was going to the tournament in 2006