Western men suffer worst loss to Northwest since 2021
By Jacob Meikel
Missouri Western men’s basketball’s run in the MIAA Tournament came to an end in the quarterfinal round at the hands of its upstate rival on Thursday.
The third meeting of the season between the two rival programs concludes the season series with the largest margin of victory for Northwest over Western since Dec. of 2021.
It took over two minutes into the contest before either team could put points on the scoreboard. Once the scoring seal was broken by Northwest at the 17:48 mark on a Wes Dreamer three pointer, the Bearcats never took their foot off the gas and didn’t allow the Griffons any hope to see the lead.
Daniel Abreu led the charge for Northwest in the first half with 13 points as the Bearcats went into the locker room up 41-24. MIAA Player of the Year Wes Dreamer led all scorers with 22 points and Abreu was close behind with 20 points.
Missouri Western was once again plagued by turnovers. They did reduce their Wednesday total of 15 turnovers against Missouri Southern down to 12 turnovers, but Western was still -4 in the turnover category.
Northwest would make Western pay a big price for the offensive rebound differential as it made the most of its +9 in the offensive rebound category by scoring 24 second chance points.
Junior Taye Fields continued his good stretch of scoring with 20 points to lead Missouri Western, but was only able to muster four total rebounds.
Missouri Western men’s basketball ends its season at 17-13 after starting the year at 14-3. In review, the Griffons earned three wins against top-25 teams including a win over Northwest that turned out to be the first win over the Bearcats in over a decade.
