By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
St. Joseph gets set for a busy basketball season and not just for the local schools.
Or, perhaps, it would be better to state the city gets set for a busy indoor sports season.
Next Friday and Saturday, the Civic Arena in downtown St. Joseph hosts eight NCAA Division II women’s basketball teams for the Women’s Basketball Central Regional Crossover. One of the eight being Missouri Western State University.
St. Joseph Convention and Visitors Bureau spokesman Christian Mengel points out more than one of the teams coming to St. Joseph for this tournament hopes to return to the Civic Arena when it hosts the Division II Elite Eight women’s tournament.
“I keep thinking back to last season’s Chiefs, where you start in Arizona against the Cardinals and you hope as a team that this isn’t your last time playing there this season,” Mengel tells host Barry Birr on the KFEQ Hotline. “I think every one of these teams coming into this tournament know this location and what it means and that this is not going to be their last time playing (there) if the season goes well, that they’ll come back there. That’s their eventual goal.”
Mengel says St. Joseph is gaining a solid reputation as a good basketball town. The St. Joseph Convention and Visitors Bureau has heard good things about that championship tournament last season.
“We heard a lot of positive feedback from, not just fans, but the players and teams involved that said it was nice to see people in the stands that they didn’t recognize, because sometimes when you get into the season, you’re playing game after game after game, you start to recognize all your home fans and who they are, but when you start recognizing a bunch of new faces, you’re like, oh these aren’t our normal fans, this is the community that came out to watch teams that they might not have a particular vested interest in,” Mengel says.
Missouri Western and Fort Hays State from the MIAA will play in the Crossover along with Minnesota State, Southern Nazarene, Minot State, Southeastern Oklahoma State, Concordia-St. Paul, and Winona State.
St. Joseph Sports Commission Director Brett Esely says a few of these teams have big dreams coming into the season, including hopes to return to the Civic Arena next Spring for the women’s D2 Elite Eight.
“So, there are eight teams coming next week in which three of those teams, Missouri Western, Fort Hays State, Minnesota State, they have been ranked very high in the country in the last couple of years,” Esely tells Birr. “So, realistically, any of those three could get here, not to mention any of the rest of the field. It is exciting. Again, it’s going to be a high level of basketball here in just under 10 days.”
The NCAA Division-Two Women’s Basketball Central Regional Crossover will be held next Friday and Saturday. The next week, the Civic Arena will be the site of the MIAA Volleyball Championship. On December 9th, Missouri’s women’s team takes on Kansas State at the Civic Arena with the St. Joseph Area Sports Hall of Fame High School Holiday Hoops Classic set for December 20th through the 22nd.
Click HERE for more details on the NCAA DII Women's Basketball Central Region Challenge.