Success is the norm for Northwest Missouri State basketball
Walking into the sold-out Sanford Pentagon arena in March 2017, it didn’t take Dray Starzl long to realize Sioux Falls, South Dakota, had turned into Maryville North. Dray was a sophomore on the Northwest Missouri State basketball team. They had been defeated in the Sweet 16 the previous three seasons. But this day belonged to the Bearcats. They were playing for the program’s first national championship.
“The arena had a commons area up front and it was just completely colored green with Northwest fans,” he says of the University of South Dakota-Sioux Falls arena. “They were loud, they filled the gym and it was one of the best atmospheres I’ve ever seen. Winning that game was great for our seniors and really put us on a different level.”
Led by head coach Ben McCollum, Northwest Missouri State University has become a perennial powerhouse in Division II basketball, winning four of the past six national championships. The team is powered by a culture of hard work and sacrifice instilled by Ben. Throughout winter, Bearcat Arena is electric as students and fans cheer on their team which — like the rest of the university — is intrinsically intertwined with the Maryville community.
Ben played at Northwest Missouri State under his coaching mentor, Steve Tappmeyer. “He had what I would call old-school values,” Ben says. “He brought an enormous amount of intensity and discipline to get the best out of you every practice, every game, every season. He taught me how to be a better teammate and serve my teammates.”
Following his first stint in Maryville, Ben had a short-lived career in the financial world. “I woke up not feeling fulfilled,” he says. “I needed to be making a difference in people’s lives, and coaching was how I could do that. I told Coach Tappmeyer I wanted to try this coaching thing and he thought I was crazy.”
He spent two years at Northwest as a graduate assistant and four years at Emporia State in Kansas as an assistant coach before he was tapped to succeed his mentor in Maryville in 2009. While the team was below .500 for Ben’s first two seasons, he knew his vision included hanging banners in Bearcat Arena.
“Early on, we really had to sell them on our dream that we were going to win championships,” he says. “We started to get lucky with some great players that came here and worked hard and eventually that culture recruits itself. We’re able to get the kids we want because the kids we want are attracted to our work ethic and culture.”
Northwest Athletic Director Andy Peterson says Maryville is the perfect spot for their programs to recruit. That includes offering a big-campus experience in a small town that’s close enough for Mom and Dad to drive to for the games.
“This is naturally a blue-collar area with lots of hard-working rural kids,” says Andy, who both played and coached for the Bearcats. “I hear we’re in the middle of nowhere, but we’re kind of in the middle of everywhere. It’s about two hours to Des Moines, Omaha, Kansas City or Lincoln. Some kids might not want to stay close to home to play, but they don’t want to go 9 hours away either.”
Andy was an assistant on the Bearcat team that brought home that first national championship from South Dakota after beating Fairmont State 71-61, just a few months after the Northwest football team did the same. As the team passed around the trophy covered in confetti, he was equal parts excited and relieved.
“It was this big sense of accomplishment to finally get over that hump and an affirmation we’re doing the right things and this isn’t a flash in the pan,” he says. “And from there Coach Mac has just become this savant and has led us on this incredible run.”
The Bearcats would go on to win three consecutive national championships from 2019-2022. Ben began this season with a winning percentage over .800 and more awards than can be listed here. However, for a coach rooted in the minutiae, details, intensity and process like Ben, the trophies and accolades aren’t the driving force.
“Winning is just the byproduct of what we do,” he says. “For me it’s the work we do in practice, our preparation and process — just working hard every day.”
Andy concurs: “He’s so into the grind. He probably doesn’t know what their record is or anybody’s stats. It’s created this mentality that has sustained success.”
Dray was first introduced to the university while he was an eighth grader in Kearney and his older brother was one of the first recruits Ben got to Maryville. He saw that success grow across his dozen years associated with the program — four years watching his brother, five years on the team and three years coaching.
The hard work kicked into high gear after their Sweet 16 departure his freshman year.
“We were on a mission, that was three straight years losing at that point,” says Dray, now a basketball coach in Brookfield. “That summer we just all worked our butts off. We’d have weights and then go for team runs around campus. We were all focused.”
Andy says the support the program — and entire athletic department — receives is community wide. “The university and the city are tied together,” he says. “We can’t talk about our university or teams and not talk about Maryville and what the community means to us. And they’re not going to talk about the city without bringing up Northwest Missouri State.”
Nearly five years after his last game as a player, Dray still remembers that support. “It’s a big campus, but a tight-knit community,” he says. “I’d walk into Hy-Vee for breakfast and the shoppers and workers were always asking how the team was doing and about our next game.”
Ben’s dedication to his culture and process has reaped rewards and accolades for Northwest’s players, coaches and fans. He says the formula isn’t a difficult one to understand, but demanding in practice.
“It sounds cliche, but it’s as simple as getting the right people and investing all of your time and efforts into them,” he says. “You have to put them in positions to be successful at what their greatest strengths are.”
“There’s an arms race in college athletics that we’re never going to be able to keep up with,” Andy says. “Almost all of our student-athletes are going to graduate and be professional teachers or farmers, not professional athletes. We have to make it more about the experience on campus and how you treat the kids and their parents.”
That combination of hard work in a great atmosphere has propelled Northwest basketball to the highest heights the program has seen with their eyes on hanging more banners in Maryville.
“You always have this drive of wanting to win, especially in the coaching realm,” Andy says. “But man, when it’s your alma mater. When it’s a place that literally changed your life and you work here now, that puts a different chip on your shoulder.”
For more information on Northwest Missouri State Basketball, visit www.bearcatsports.com.