The Missouri State Bears and Lady Bears are the athletic teams representing Missouri State University (formerly Southwest Missouri State University). Missouri State's athletics programs date back to 1908. Missouri State competes in the NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision. The majority of sports play in the Division I

Missouri Valley Conference The Missouri Valley Conference (also called MVC or simply "The Valley") is the third-oldest collegiate athletic conference in the United States. The conference's members are primarily located in the midwest. History The MVC was established ...

. Missouri State football competes in the

Missouri Valley Football Conference The Missouri Valley Football Conference (MVFC), formerly the Gateway Football Conference, is a collegiate athletic conference which operates in the Midwestern United States. It participates in the NCAA's Division I Football Championship Subdivi ...

, while Men's Swimming and Diving competes in the

Mid-American Conference The Mid-American Conference (MAC) is a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) NCAA Division I, Division I collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference with a membership base in the Great Lakes region (North America), Great L ...

, and the beach volleyball team is a member of the

Coastal Collegiate Sports Association The Coastal Collegiate Sports Association is an NCAA Division I college athletic conference. Established in 2008, the Coastal Collegiate Swimming Association (CCSA) was originally developed by four regional Division I conferences — the A ...

. Missouri State athletics are frequently abbreviated as "MOST" when televised.

Sports sponsored

A member of the

, Missouri State University sponsors six men's and 11 women's teams in

NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges an ...

sanctioned sports.

National championships

Team

Women's basketball NCAA tournament results

NCAA Tournament appearances

WNIT appearances

2002, 2005 (Champions), 2010, 2011,

2012 File:2012 Events Collage V3.png, From left, clockwise: The passenger cruise ship Costa Concordia lies capsized after the Costa Concordia disaster; Damage to Casino Pier in Seaside Heights, New Jersey as a result of Hurricane Sandy; People gat ...

, 2015,

2017 File:2017 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The War Against ISIS at the Battle of Mosul (2016-2017); aftermath of the Manchester Arena bombing; The Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017 ("Great American Eclipse"); North Korea tests a s ...

2018 File:2018 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2018 Winter Olympics opening ceremony in PyeongChang, South Korea; Protests erupt following the Assassination of Jamal Khashoggi; March for Our Lives protests take place across the Unit ...

AIAW tournament appearances

Missouri

AIAW The Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) was founded in 1971 to govern collegiate women's athletics in the United States and to administer national championships (see AIAW Champions). It evolved out of the Commission on Interc ...

state tournament: 1970–1982 (won 1971, 1973, 1974, 1975 and 1981 tournaments)
AIAW Region VI tournament: 1974, 1975, 1981
AIAW Division II national tournament: 1981

Conference championships

Gateway Conference (1983–1992) 2
1991, 1992

(1992–present) 12
1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1999, 2001, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2012, 2020, 2021

Head coaches

*Reba Sims (10 seasons, 129–116), 1969–1979 *Marti Gasser (4 seasons, 62–60), 1979–1983 *Valerie Goodwin-Colbert (4 seasons, 48–63), 1983–1987 *

Cheryl Burnett Cheryl Elaine Burnett (born June 13, 1958) is an American former women's college basketball coach and player. She was the head coach of the Southwest Missouri State women's basketball team from 1987 to 2002. At Southwest Missouri State, she compi ...

(15 seasons, 319–136), 1987–2002 **10 NCAA Tournament Appearances ***2 Final Four Appearances ***3 Sweet 16 Appearances **1 WNIT Appearance * Katie Abrahamson-Henderson (5 seasons, 95–61), 2002–2007 **3 NCAA Tournament Appearances **WNIT Championship *

Nyla Milleson Nyla Milleson (born September 8, 1962) is the athletic director at Drury University and the former women's basketball head coach of Missouri State University and George Mason University. She was hired at Missouri State before the 2007–08 seaso ...

(5 seasons, 105–87), 2007–2013 **3 WNIT Appearances * Kellie Harper (6 seasons, 118–79), 2013–2019 **2 NCAA Appearances **3 WNIT Appearances *

Amaka Agugua-Hamilton Amaka Agugua-Hamilton (born April 13, 1983) is the current head coach of the Virginia Cavaliers women's basketball team. Hofstra statistics Source Missouri State Amaka Agugua-Hamilton was introduced as the head coach of the Missouri Sta ...

(2 season, 49-7), 2019–present **1 NCAA Appearance ***1 Sweet Sixteen Appearance

Retired numbers

*10

Jackie Stiles Jackie Marie Stiles (born December 21, 1978) is an American college basketball coach who was formerly an assistant coach for the University of Oklahoma women's basketball team and at Missouri State University. Stiles set several scoring records ...

, 1997–2001 (NCAA Division I Women's Basketball's all-time #2 leading scorer with 3,393 points) *35 Melody Howard, 1990–1994 *42 Jeanette Tendai, 1982–1986

Facilities

Club sports

The university also sponsors several club sports teams, including

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice h ...

( ACHA),

lacrosse Lacrosse is a team sport played with a lacrosse stick and a lacrosse ball. It is the oldest organized sport in North America, with its origins with the indigenous people of North America as early as the 12th century. The game was extensiv ...

( MCLA), and roller hockey ( NCRHA).

Men's ice hockey

Missouri State men's ice hockey, known as the Ice Bears, began in 2001 and despite not being a varsity

sport receives much attention on and off-campus. The Ice Bears currently compete at the Division I level of the American Collegiate Hockey Association (ACHA) in the Western Collegiate Hockey League (WCHL). The teams play off-campus at the 2,000-seat

Mediacom Ice Park Jordan Valley Ice Park is a multi-purpose arena located in downtown Springfield, Missouri. The arena is owned and operated by the Springfield-Greene County Park Board and serves as a location for community recreation and the home for the Missouri S ...

. Men's varsity ice hockey finished the 2009–2010 season ranked 2nd in the MACHA DII with a record of 12–4–0 in 16 league games, the team lost in the MACHA Championship 1–5 to Southern Illinois University- Edwardsville. In addition to the ACHA DII team the University also fields a JV teams playing at the ACHA DIII level. The team won the MACHA DIII championship with a 5–3 win over Robert Morris University- Peoria.
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Men's lacrosse

Missouri State also fields a highly successful club Lacrosse Team. Founded in 2003, it competes in the

Men's Collegiate Lacrosse Association The Men's Collegiate Lacrosse Association (MCLA) is a national organization of non-NCAA men's college lacrosse programs. The MCLA oversees game play and conducts national championships for over 200 teams in ten conferences throughout the United S ...

(MCLA) Division II and was a member of the Great Rivers Lacrosse Conference (GRLC) through 2017 before it moved to Division II of the

Lone Star Alliance The Lone Star Alliance (LSA) is a lacrosse-only athletic conference affiliated with the Men's Collegiate Lacrosse Association (MCLA). The conference incorporates teams in Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska and is ...

(LSA) in 2018. The Bears have been conference champions five times in their history (2004, 2009, 2010, 2017, and 2018) and have qualified for the MCLA National Championships on four occasions (2009, 2010, 2017, and 2018). The Bears finished the 2018 season with a record of 12-3, including a perfect 6-0 conference record and victories over Creighton, Baylor, and in-state rival

University of Missouri The University of Missouri (Mizzou, MU, or Missouri) is a public land-grant research university in Columbia, Missouri. It is Missouri's largest university and the flagship of the four-campus University of Missouri System. MU was founded in ...

. Since 2003, Missouri State has fielded 11 All-Americans, over 80 All-Conference players, 3 GRLC Tournament MVP's, and 4 GRLC Division II Coach's of the Year.

References

External links

* {{Navboxes , titlestyle = {{CollegePrimaryStyle, Missouri State Bears, color=white , list = {{Missouri Valley Conference navbox {{Missouri Valley Football Conference navbox {{Mid-American Conference navbox {{Coastal Collegiate Sports Association navbox {{Missouri Sports