Northwest Missouri State is back in the postseason for the fifth straight year despite a youth movement within the program.
The Bearcats lost 10 players that made up more than 67.3% of the team's minutes from the 2024-25 season due to graduation and the transfer portal. On top of that, they are also playing without starter Emree Zars due to a knee injury she suffered in the MIAA Tournament last March.
Senior Ella Moody and sophomores Sadie Maas and Brooklyn Stanley were the only active Bearcats with any experience in the MIAA as the season began. That meant a heavy dose of newcomers — three transfers, three redshirt freshmen, and two true freshmen, would be expected to carry a sizable load in the toughest conference in the nation.
But they never blinked.
"They don't overthink things," Northwest head coach Austin Meyer said of his young team. "They don't get hung up on a lot of things, so it's just the message of come in there and play hard, compete."
Northwest enters this week's MIAA Tournament as the five-seed after winning eight of nine to cap the regular season, including a 65-60 road victory against Missouri Southern. The Bearcats have already reached the 18-win mark for only the second time in the last 15 years.
Next on the checklist is a berth in the conference tournament's semifinal game Saturday afternoon, which the Bearcats have only reached once since 2011.
"We won't talk much about the atmosphere, playing in the bigger arena, those types of things. It's just have a good practice the day before and go in there with that mindset of having a great warmup, get our communication going and come out ready to play."
Northwest and Missouri Southern will clash in the MIAA Tournament quarterfinals Friday at noon in Kansas City. You can hear the game live on KXCV 90.5 and KRNW 88.9.
