By TOMMY REZAC
St. Joseph Post
Rivalry games always create extra excitement. Even if one or both teams are down.
Just ask unranked Auburn how much they'd have loved to beat Alabama in overtime this past November and spoil the Crimson Tide's playoff plans. Ask North Carolina basketball fans, and they'd likely say a win over Duke, regardless of record, is huge.
Ask Mizzou fans, and they can probably tell you the exact day when they last won the Border War with Kansas. Any rivalry is great. Even better when both teams are playing well.
In northwest Missouri, the Missouri Western-Northwest Missouri State rivalry has a similar feel. Proximity. Play every year in multiple sports. High stakes battles.
Both sides look forward to it and circle it, even if the matchups in football and men's basketball have been quite one-sided in favor of the Green and White for the better part of a decade.
This weekend, however, the rivalry takes on a different feel. It's the women's basketball game that's the main event, and it's been awhile since that's been the case.
Both the Bearcats and No. 22 Griffons are having terrific seasons. Missouri Western (17-3, 11-3 MIAA) is off to its best start since 2015-16, and Northwest (14-6, 9-5 MIAA) is off to its best start in 11 years and seeking just its third winning season since 2010.
The two collide in a battle of top MIAA teams on Saturday at 5 p.m. in the MWSU Fieldhouse.
"I look at us two programs on the women's side here," Northwest women's coach Austin Meyer said, "and this is probably the first time in, I don't know maybe ever, where both teams come into the game with good records and both in the top 5-6 in the league."
It's been since the 2010-11 season that both teams met in February and had winning records. The last time they met in February and were both at least six games above .500?
You have to go all the way back to the 03-04 season. February 25, 2004. Northwest was 18-6 and Missouri Western 18-7. The Bearcats came into St. Joseph and won 67-66 in overtime before winning an MIAA tournament title less than two weeks later.
It also happened on February 21, 2007. No. 2 Missouri Western (27-1) beat Northwest (16-10) 77-58 in a year where both teams went on to make the NCAA tournament, though all 30 of MWSU's wins in 2006-07 were vacated due to NCAA violations.
2006-07 was the last time both Western and Northwest women's basketball made the NCAA tournament in the same season.
Both teams have had good years since then, but both have had their struggles, too. Missouri Western had three straight losing seasons from 2007-2010 and again in 2011-12 and 13-14 before three straight winning seasons, including two 20-win campaigns, under coach Rob Edmisson from 2014-17.
Northwest enjoyed three straight winning seasons from 2005-2008, but haven't finished with a winning record since 2012-13. Being six games above .500 in February is something the Bearcats haven't experienced much lately in women's hoops.
Just the second time since 2010, in fact. All five of the Bearcats' conference losses this year have been by seven points or fewer.
"We've been in games," Meyer said. "There's some games we haven't closed, but we've had some good wins as well. Some good road wins. Happy with where we're at, but on the women's side, it's such a deep league there's so many good teams and obviously Western is up there."
Western is 11-3 in the MIAA - tied with UCM, Fort Hays State, Nebraska-Kearney and Missouri Southern for most conference wins as of Thursday. A deep league indeed.
Northwest and Missouri Western met once this season in Maryville on Dec. 18, 2021. The Bearcats improved to 9-2 in a 49-46 defensive struggle for both teams. It was Missouri Western's first loss and their lowest scoring output of the season in a game where both teams shot below 30% from the field.
"(The Bearcats) have a unique style in how they play," Missouri Western head coach Candi Whitaker said. "They're playing really well. They have good size. They're big at the guards, they're big inside and they try and use that size to make things hard at the rim. You have to play with tempo, and we didn't really execute well up there (in December)."
Northwest boasts the best scoring defense in the MIAA, allowing a stingy 54.7 points per game, while only scoring 60.7 per night themselves. Missouri Western, on the other hand, leads the league with 78.1 points per contest, including 10 games with 80 or more.
"They are really good in the open floor," Meyer said of Western. "I mean, they're good in the half court as well, but they get out in transition. So, if you can limit them from getting easy buckets and make them go against your half court defense, I think you have a better chance."
It's a clash of styles when these two meet. Missouri Western plays a fast pace in the full court and will beat opponents in transition. Northwest slows things down and plays an effective half court offense and presses hard on defense. Whatever the Bearcats did the last time out, it slowed down an otherwise lethal MWSU offense.
How do the Griffons turn the tide on Saturday?
"We have to try to score," Whitaker laughed. "We had some people (in December) not really even look at the hoop. So, you have to try and score."
Seeing a high-stakes Northwest/Western battle in sports is nothing new. Seeing a high stakes battle in women's basketball with both teams solidly in the upper half of the MIAA late in the season?
That is pretty new, and should be pretty enjoyable for both the fans and players.
"I think it'll be fun," Meyer said. "This is a year where both teams are playing well and Candi has done a great job there. They're playing as well as anybody in the league. So, hopefully we can come out and play hard and compete and get after it."
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