MoWest and Northwest Missouri State basketball teams preview seasons at MIAA Basketball Media Day in Kansas City
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KQTV) - The MIAA Basketball Media Day was at the College Basketball Experience in Kansas City on Tuesday. The MoWest and Northwest Missouri State basketball teams spoke about preparing for their upcoming seasons.
Starting with the MoWest basketball team. The men are coming off a 21-12 season in NCAA tournament berth for the first time since 2021. Brooks McKowen enters his 2nd year leading the Griffins. McKowen has familiar veteran players like William Kiburis, Gavin Hershberger, Bode Goodman, and Trey McKowen all returning that know his system and will look to lead the way.
It gives us some expectations, so maybe a little bit of a target on our back, but obviously you want to put yourself in the same position where you're making that tournament run," said Kiburis. "Hopefully win 20+ games, same kind of team you were last year, and hopefully better."
"We built our program of high character kids that are going to come to work every day and and bust their butt to get better," said McKowen. "I think we added a good group this year and a good blend of transfers that have some really good experience at all levels. I think you continue to just do things the right way."
MoWest kicks off its season on Monday, November 9th at Quincy University in Illinois. The team's first home games will be against St. Cloud State and Minnesota Duluth on November 13th and 14th in the Hillyard Tipoff Classic at the MWSU Fieldhouse.
On the women's side, Luke Scheidecker begins his second season at MoWest. His Griffons were 15-16 last year with a late 7-game win streak that brought them to the brink of a near MIAA tournament championship berth. Griffons practically have a brand new team heading into 2026, but MoWest has two familiar faces leading the way senior Nakiya Harris, plus grad student and MIAA newcomer of the year last season, Mia Morel.
"I feel like how we can build off and like go in the next step is just everyone being on the same page and wanting the same goal, and you can see everybody does," said Morel. "So with us having that same goal, I feel like it's just gonna be one game at a time, one practice at a time. It's just all gonna start coming together."
"I love our, our skill set, we have great kids, they've come and worked really hard,"said Scheidecker. "I love their energy, how connected we are. But it's an exciting group. We pass it really well. We're really skilled, we shoot it really well. We have kids who know how to win."
The MoWest women will tipoff their season against Gannon University and Roosevelt University on November 6-7th in Owensboro, Kentucky for the D2CCA Tipoff Classic. The team's first home game will be on Tuesday, November 17th against Harding at the MWSU Fieldhouse.
For Northwest Missouri State basketball. Matt Keeley enters year 3 leading the Bearcats. His team improved from year 1 to year 2, from 6 wins to then 15 wins last season. His roster includes 11 of 15 players that have only been Bearcats, unique in the transfer portal age. The leader of the team will be senior Trey Moala, the last remaining link of the Ben McCollum years. He leads a group that returns promising young players like sophomores Robbie Garcia and Lorenz Walters that will look to try and bring the dominance of Bearcat basketball back.
"We've got the right guys to fit Keeley's style a little bit more," said Moala. "We've got a lot of athletes this year, so I think we can get up and down the court pretty quick."
"When we're really good on offense, I'm worried about are we any good defensively against ourselves and vice versa. When we we get a bunch of stops, I'm like, can can we ever score? So time will tell with that," said Keeley. "The anchors for us are transition offense, team defense, and then just having a grit to rebounding."
The Bearcats will open the season against William Jewell at Bearcat Arena on Monday, November 9th.
For the Bearcat women, Austin Meyer has a veteran group returning and looking to build off of last year's 18-12 season. Returning is reigning MIAA Defensive Player of the Year, Sadie Maas, and the scoring of senior Andrea Lopreato and sophomore Bailey Birmingham. With so much familiarity back, Northwest is picked to finish 4th in the coaches poll, and the Bearcats are hoping for a strong run to get further in the MIAA tournament this year and beyond.
"It's really nice because we don't have to put in a new offense and a new defense. Obviously with the 3 freshmen, they're adapting really well," said Maas. "They have a lot of veterans on the team to help them out. I would say it's really nice that we don't have to like backtrack for this preseason. We can start like hit the ground running."
"Our message to our team is how do we take that next step and how do we get this to a championship level program? I think we have the pieces in here in our room from a work ethic attitude, team chemistry standpoint," said Meyer. "It's a really good league, really good coaches, and so you've got to bring it every single night."
The Bearcat women will open the season on Tuesday, October 27th against Doane in an exhibition match at Bearcat Arena. The first real game will be against Lincoln on Monday, November 9th at Bearcat Stadium.
