Missouri State Lady Bears swept in Iowa, fall to 5 seed heading into MVC Tournament

Wyatt D. Wheeler, Springfield News-Leader
·2 min read
Missouri State Head Coach Beth Cunningham as the Bears take on the Drake Bulldogs at Great Southern Bank Arena on Saturday, Jan. 28, 2023.

A two-game road trip to finish the regular season didn't go according to plan for the Lady Bears and they will have to come out of an opening-round game at the conference tournament because of it.

Missouri State lost to Drake 83-63 on Thursday and followed with an 86-67 defeat at Northern Iowa on Saturday afternoon.

The Lady Bears finished their first regular season under Beth Cunningham with a 19-10 overall record and a 14-6 record in the Missouri Valley Conference.

At 10-6 in the MVC, the Lady Bears tied Drake for fourth place in the conference. The Bulldogs won the tiebreaker between the two because it won a game against Belmont this season when the Lady Bears didn't. That dropped Missouri State to a five-seed and will force the Lady Bears to play an opening-round game on Thursday in Moline, Illinois, instead of getting an automatic bye to the tournament's quarterfinals.

The fifth-seeded Lady Bears will play 12th-seeded Bradley at 2:30 p.m. on Thursday in the opening round of the MVC Tournament in Moline, Illinois. The Braves have one conference win this season which came on Saturday in a 61-51 victory at Evansville.

The Lady Bears won both matchups against Bradley this season with an 87-54 win in Springfield on Jan. 7 and a 74-64 victory in Peoria on Feb. 10. The winner will go on to play No. 4 Drake on Friday at 2:30 p.m. in the MVC quarterfinals.

Against Drake on Thursday, the Lady Bears struggled to get stops as the Bulldogs shot 56.9% from the floor with four players scoring in double-figures. At the same time, the Lady Bears shot 34.9% with Aniya Thomas doing the heavy lifting with 22 points while going 9 of 22 from the field.

Throughout the first half of Saturday's game at Northern Iowa, the Lady Bears played better and went into the break down by six. The Panthers then took over with a 21-10 third quarter to put the game away. The Panthers shot 49.2% from the field and hit 11 shots from beyond the arc.

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. He's also the co-host of Sports Talk on Jock Radio weekdays from 4-6 p.m.

This article originally appeared on Springfield News-Leader: Missouri State Lady Bears to play Bradley in MVC Tournament