MVC Week 8: 1/31/23 - 2/5/23

[Phantom]

Pops, you're new to league so I'll give you a pass...Birds vs UNI in STL rarely goes the good guys' way, epitomized by two games.

March 8th, 2009. Championship Sunday. The Redbirds lost to UNI in OT after we got an offensive rebound late, and instead of putting up the wide open lay up, we kicked it out and restarted the offense. It all unraveled from there.

March 8th, 2015. Championship Sunday. The Redbirds were the 4 seed and their were two giants atop the conference. The 1 seed was No. 8 Wichita State who the Birds beat by 3 on semifinal Saturday. Massive win and one of the best games I've seen live. They would advance to play the 2 seed and the No.11 team in the country, the UNI Panthers. Everything, and I do mean everything was going the Redbirds way, being up 36-22 at half. Redbird fans knew it was far from over...it was...Birds lost 69-60 and another shot to go to the dance.

While we're reminiscing, might as well catch you up to speed, since you may not know, why some fans a little jaded toward the program.
07-08: Lost to Drake in MVC Title, lost to Dayton in second round of NIT.
08-09: Lost to UNI in MVC Title, lost in OT to Kstate in first round of NIT.
09-10: Lost to Wichita State in semi-finals, Lost to Dayton first round NIT.
11-12: Beat No. 15 Wichita in semi-finals, Lost to No. 25 Creighton in OT in the Championship. Lost to Stanford in OT, second round of NIT
14-15: See above.
16-17: Went 17-1 in conference play, share of regular season title, lost to Wichita in the Championship. Lost to UCF in the second round of NIT. Had they won that game, they would've hosted Illannoy for the first and only time-ever. Guess what? Big halftime lead for that one too.
17-18: Lost to Loyola on Championship Sunday. Loyola went on to go to the Final 4.
18-19: Tied Breakers put us to Thursday night after losing one two buzzer beaters during conference play
19-20: Thursday
20-21: Thursday
21-22: Thursday.

If you're keeping tabs at home that is 6 Arch Madness Championship losses in 10 years. 6 times, they were one game away from the dance and couldn't get it down. Wow...Sorry everyone...that's a bummer.

I hope this helps provide a little context to where the team has been the last 15 years and that fans don't forget. LOL. Definitely excited about where things are headed but also, the sentiment that if you don't learn from history it's going to repeat itself is at play. I know Pedon will get us over the hump.

Great summary. Man I wish trips down memory lane didn't sting so bad. Still not sure which one of those was the most upsetting. But I lean on '09. Not only were we 1 layup away, but that was the third loss to UNI that year, by a TOTAL of like 8 points. Two of those games went to OT. Just couldn't get the one basket we needed in each. One of those regular season wins might have given us an at-large too. We were loaded and deep that year. I know we would've won at least one game in the Dance. But alas...

 

[Adunk33]

Great summary. Man I wish trips down memory lane didn't sting so bad. Still not sure which one of those was the most upsetting. But I lean on '09. Not only were we 1 layup away, but that was the third loss to UNI that year, by a TOTAL of like 8 points. Two of those games went to OT. Just couldn't get the one basket we needed in each. One of those regular season wins might have given us an at-large too. We were loaded and deep that year. I know we would've won at least one game in the Dance. But alas...

Overall for me, it's the 16-17 Championship because of everything that happened leading up to it during the season and the previous few seasons. It was a game around 4 years in the making and the Birds just completely fell flat and embarrassed themselves at the end of the day with some poor sportsmanship. If I remember Hawkins and McIntosh both got T'd up.

As far as the in-the-moment game that were more "one offs" I would go with 11-12 OT loss to a ranked Creighton after beating ranked Wichita, followed by the '09 UNI OT loss. Birds also destroyed Creighton on Saturday that year. Osiris went off hand had a SCTop10 Dunk.

 

[Phantom]

Overall for me, it's the 16-17 Championship because of everything that happened leading up to it during the season and the previous few seasons. It was a game around 4 years in the making and the Birds just completely fell flat and embarrassed themselves at the end of the day with some poor sportsmanship. If I remember Hawkins and McIntosh both got T'd up.

As far as the in-the-moment game that were more "one offs" I would go with 11-12 OT loss to a ranked Creighton after beating ranked Wichita, followed by the '09 UNI OT loss. Birds also destroyed Creighton on Saturday that year. Osiris went off hand had a SCTop10 Dunk.

Absolutely crushing Creighton on Saturday in 09 was the best part of that weekend for sure. A few thousand WSU fans were cheering for us all game, it was pretty funny. OE going baseline and giving Stinnet windburn on that dunk was tremendous. And then Sunday happened.