Snubbed Part 6: What Hinson told Bill Rowe before being fired and why he's not a coach now

After the dust settled from the disappointment in 2006, Missouri State went into the next year trying to right its wrongs.

The Bears figured they needed to add a marquee win to their resume and they got one. Starting the year 4-0, the Bears beat No. 7 Wisconsin by two at the South Padre Island Convention Center.

In non-conference play, they only lost two games to Oklahoma State in overtime and to Saint Louis by one at the buzzer — a controversial moment in which the television and replay feed differed from the in-house video feed when the tip-in came down to a replay review. SLU’s game-winner counted when it shouldn’t have.

MSU had another strong Valley season and finished third in the standings. This time, the Bears won their quarterfinal game before losing to Creighton by 17 in the Arch Madness semifinals.

The Bears’ RPI was 38th on the Sunday after but they weren’t holding their breath. They thought they should get in but the heartbreak of the year before led to no celebration or much confidence. Instead of pizza in Coach Barry Hinson’s basement, the Bears watched the Selection Show behind closed doors at the alumni lounge at the arena.

Missouri State was left out again.

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

“That was a tough pill to swallow,” senior Blake Ahearn said. He played his final game at Hammons Student Center a few days later in a four-point NIT loss to San Diego State.

The 2007-08 season wasn’t as fun or successful.

The Bears played seemingly with the weight of the world on their shoulders. There was pressure from the jump that if they didn’t make the tournament, it would likely turn into their head coach being dismissed.

It translated to the floor when the Bears had been inconsistent throughout the early part of non-conference play. By the end of January, they were 11-11 following a 70-62 overtime loss at 9-12 Wichita State.

In the tunnels of Koch Arena, Hinson pulled then-Athletic Director Bill Rowe aside on their way back to the locker room.

“When we came out of the press conference, he said ‘Coach, I know these games are killing you, just like they’re killing me, but I’m a realist… if we don’t win the MVC Tournament, you’re gonna need to make a change,’” Rowe said. “It’s one of the most manly things anyone has ever told me when it came to a job situation. I said ‘It’s not your fault, it’s just one of those things when they want to get to the tournament. So I told the president that he was a man about the whole thing and that he’s a realist and knows what’s going to happen. He knows that we still love him, because we did, and I’ll be grateful to him for the rest of my life.”

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

The Bears finished the season 17-16 and with a quarterfinal exit at Arch Madness. Two days later, Hinson was fired.

“Those years were hard,” Hinson said. “There’s an old saying that sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me. But you gotta remember that this was the first time that sports had call-ins and message boards and all that stuff was really prevalent. I wasn’t mature enough at the time and I finally got smart and don’t look at that stuff.

“But there were probably five people who got underneath my collar over there and then 495,995 people that I love to death. I still wish I could go down to get my hair cut at Cooper’s because when I walk in there, it would still feel like I’m walking into home.”

“I didn’t think it would ever happen,” former Bears leader Kellen Easley added. “It was a shock to me. I can tell you that I feel like, I don’t want to say I blame myself but, you know, I kind of do blame myself a little bit. Like, what if I had done that much more or something, you know? Then it wouldn’t have ever happened. You know, God does things for a reason.”

Part 3: Missouri State allowed doubt with early loss at Arch Madness in 2006

Seventeen years later...

An hour before a meeting with his athletics director on a recent Friday morning, Hinson sat in his office at Oklahoma State.

The former Missouri State head basketball coach knew he couldn’t be late because he wanted to keep alive the streak of never being fired by an athletics director. He laughed, saying that he has made sure to build a great relationship with the university’s president this time.

The Oklahoma State grad is now an associate athletics director at his alma mater and serves as the school’s Director of NIL. Instead of being in charge of 15 student-athletes, as he was as a collegiate head coach for 18 years, he feels like he’s a coach for more than 400 athletes.

Hinson is happy and he doesn’t plan on returning to a sideline anytime soon.

“I’m done,” Hinson said. “I’ve had the opportunity to be a head coach again, specifically three times, but I guess it’s maturity. For all of my life, I’ve always moved my family around based around my interest and job and all that stuff. After Southern Illinois, it really took a toll on my family. I could be an assistant coach somewhere but I was very fortunate to come home.”

Hinson hasn’t been a head coach since he was fired by Southern Illinois following the 2018-19 season. He had many memorable moments in charge of the Salukis but none involved a trip to the NCAA Tournament.

Nothing changed Hinson from being who he was. He still loved and cared for his players and kept the same sense of humor that Springfield came to know.

The world experienced Hinson's personality in December 2013 following a loss when he delivered one of the great press conference rants of all time and it went viral. Criticizing the Salukis’ performance, Hinson proclaimed loudly that his team was “absolutely awful” following a loss to Murray State.

During Hinson's rant, he sarcastically said, "My wife — my wife! — can score more than two buckets on 11 shots because I know my wife will at least shot fake one time. … I've been telling my wife this for years: Size doesn't matter."

Blake Ahearn remembered sitting in Barcelona, Spain, when he was playing professionally when his phone started to go nuts. His teammates from Missouri State couldn’t believe what they were watching, but at the same time, they could.

“We heard plenty of those,” Ahearn said. “They just didn’t make it to live TV.”

“We’re like ‘we saw that every day in practice,’” Drew Richards said. “If this existed back then, it would have been a weekly thing that Coach Hinson was on there. It was not shocking at all. It’s just like ‘Hey! There’s coach!’”

Hinson’s head coaching career ended in a 2019 MVC Tournament quarterfinal loss. In the tunnels of the Enterprise Center in St. Louis, Hinson revealed that he made a deal the year prior with the SIU chancellor that if he didn’t lead SIU to the NIT or NCAA Tournament that he would step down.

Hinson made the announcement in the postgame press conference. There wasn’t a dry eye in the room.

"I've been blessed to be a part of this conference for 16 years," Hinson said as he fought off tears of his own. "There's no one who loves the Valley more than I do.

"If you would quote me on one thing, I'd like you to quote me on this," Hinson began. "I am so sorry. I am so sorry that we couldn't get back to the tournament. It's haunted me… It's haunted me my entire life."

Hinson’s former players have gone on to have success. Something Rowe, Hinson’s former boss at MSU, takes the most pride in.

“I think every coach makes a bearing on people but Barry put in a lot of effort,” Rowe said. “He made a great difference in a lot of young men’s lives. They’re good citizens, they’re good fathers. And they’re just good people.”

Ahearn is climbing up the coaching ranks in the NBA. He’s an assistant coach for the Memphis Grizzlies and has been around some of the brightest minds in the game. His goal is to one day be in charge of his own NBA sideline.

To this day, Ahearn comes up with a daily quote or message for his players to help keep them locked in and focused. It was something he adopted from Hinson.

Richards attached himself to MSU associate head coach Ben Miller who later became the head coach at UNC Pembroke. Richards became the Division II program’s head coach in 2020.

He’s felt the joy of being selected for the NCAA Tournament in each of the last two seasons.

In his first year, Richards caught himself stomping his feet on the ground while he was coaching. He immediately stopped and thought to himself “damn it” because it was something the team used to make fun of Hinson for doing. Ahearn laughed and said he’s never done that and never will.

Lamberth is now the director of the Missouri Flight AAU program in southwest Missouri. He coaches many of his former teammate’s kids and talks about their glory days frequently. As he gets older, the athletes who come through his program have fewer questions about what it was like to play for the Bears during those years.

Part 4: Inside Hinson's basement when Missouri State's heart was broken in 2006

“I still tell them that there are opportunities for them in the middle of July,” Lamberth said. “I tell them that this is their opportunity. Trust me. I know what it feels like when I’m playing. When I was 21 years old, I was playing in the Missouri Valley and we didn’t make the tournament.

“There’s no worse feeling than sitting there and nobody calls your name and you just got gut punched. It’s like playing in an open gym and you’re the last pick except you have to go sit out and watch everybody live your dream. They seem to listen to it and there’s some of them who have been able to grow through the story and make their own story.”

Hinson’s coaching story that began when he took over for Bill Self at Oral Roberts in 1997 had come to an end. His road wound up in Springfield as he replaced a legend. Self told him that it was the worst time to take the MSU job because of what Steve Alford had just accomplished with an NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 run.

But Self continued by adding that Hinson needed to take it because he would be the perfect fit.

Combined with his days between Missouri State and Southern Illinois, Hinson went 285-228 in 16 seasons making him the fourth-winningest coach in the Valley’s history.

“Forever, one of the greatest things to ever happen to me was to be able to stay in the Missouri Valley Conference for 16 seasons,” Hinson said. “To have the statement of ‘the dean of the league’ for a period I was there, I wore that as a badge of honor. I take great, great pride in my time.”

“He was, and is, one of the leading spokespersons of our league,” former Commissioner Doug Elgin said. “He was always out there. He was well-known for his humor but his heart was in the right place and a positive influencer in the media for the Missouri Valley. Without question, maybe among all the coaches we’ve had, he had the strongest voice when talking, even if it wasn’t about his own team. He’s just a great guy who is respected on the national scene.”

The RPI is less prominent than it was just a few years ago. The flawed rating system was replaced by the NET rankings system, which is considered by ESPN bracketologist Joe Lunardi to be a better tool when it comes to selecting the teams for the tournament. The public doesn't know the formula but it does a better job of measuring "good basketball" instead of an RPI that was 75% about who you played and a quarter about how you played.

Part 5: Why Missouri State might have been left out of the 2006 NCAA Tournament

However, it will be more difficult to see a school like Missouri State be ranked as high as 21.

"It'll be impossible for five Missouri Valley teams to be in the top 30 unless they're able to make a crazy great schedule and win far above what reasonable expectations would be," Lunardi said.

The bracketologist remembers being on TV after a recent selection show when St. Bonaventure got snubbed from the 2018 tournament. He was asked if the Bonnies being left out with an RPI of 27 at the end of the season was the worst omission he's ever seen.

"I said 'Missouri State was 21st,'" Lunardi said.

The Bears still haven't been to the NCAA Tournament since 1999. After Hinson was let go, Cuonzo Martin led the Bears for three seasons before departing for Tennessee after winning the MVC regular season title. Paul Lusk went 106-121 in seven years which set the program back. Dana Ford is entering his sixth year with an 89-66 record and is still fighting to turn the Bears into a contender.

Since 2006, the Valley has sent two teams to the NCAA Tournament six times. The Bears are tied with Evansville for the league’s second-longest NCAA Tournament drought only ahead of Illinois State. The league has lost the likes of Wichita State, Creighton and Loyola Chicago to other conferences.

Hinson is still the Bears’ second-winningest coach in the program’s history, only behind the legendary Charlie Spoonhour.

Unfortunately, his career will forever be overshadowed by his inability to help any of his teams advance to the NCAA Tournament.

Hinson admits he still thinks back frequently to sitting in his basement on that Selection Sunday 17 years ago.

He said it’s not an exaggeration to say it doesn’t cross his mind at least two or three times a week during the offseason. Once basketball season comes around, it’s more prevalent. Around tournament time, Hinson estimates that he thinks about it up to 20 times a day.

At least once a year, Hinson said he’ll receive a phone call from someone wanting to talk about the worst snubs in NCAA Tournament history. While watching games on television, he often sees his 2005-06 team referenced as the best RPI team to ever not make the tournament.

He specifically remembers walking on a treadmill before a Big 12 Tournament game and watching television to only see a graphic go up showing a few of the top RPI teams to not make the NCAA Tournament. He coached three of them.

“Before my father passed away, he just kept saying ‘Son, you’re gonna have to let this go,’” Hinson said. “And I just can’t. I just can’t. I’ve talked about maturity and I’m not mature enough to let this go. My dad said ‘You need to forgive and forget’ and I don’t think I’ve done both. I’ve done neither of them.

“I just really feel for those kids and I knew we had something special.”

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: What Hinson told Bill Rowe before firing and why he's not coaching now