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For the first time since 2015, Arkansas is hitting the road for the postseason. It will travel three hours to the west for the 2022 Stillwater Regional hosted by No. 7 overall seed Oklahoma State. The other participants are Grand Canyon and Missouri State.
Before play begins Friday, HawgBeat is taking a closer look at all three potential opponents. We conclude our series with the 4 seed, Missouri State…
Record: 30-27 (8-13 MVC)
Missouri State is a team that likely would not have sniffed the NCAA Tournament had it not clutched up with its back against the wall and won the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament to earn the automatic bid.
Finishing conference play well below .500 with an 8-13 record, the Bears were the 6 seed in the MVC Tournament. After defeating Illinois State in the first game, they earned a matchup with Southern Illinois, who was the regular-season conference champion, in the first round.
After defeating the Salukis 5-1, Missouri State went on to steamroll Bradley 19-3, earning a victory by mercy rule in seven innings. The Bears then completed a narrow victory over 2 seed Evansville in the semifinal, pushing them into the championship undefeated.
Rematched with Southern Illinois, the Salukis would’ve needed to beat the Bears twice in a row to win the tournament. Southern Illinois took care of business in the first game, winning 9-6, but fell short in the winner-take-all final match. Missouri State earned an NCAA Tournament bid and won its fifth MVC Conference Tournament title with a decisive 13-3 victory.
Looking back at the regular season, the Bears played a very tough non-conference schedule and typically played up to its opponent’s strength. In six games against Power Five teams, they posted a 5-4 record and had a positive overall run differential of 59-50 against the likes of Kansas, Indiana, Oklahoma State, Missouri and Arkansas. Against the teams in the Stillwater regional, the Bears were 1-1, dropping a road matchup with the Cowboys 5-1 and defeating the Hogs 6-4 in Fayetteville.
Aside from Oklahoma State and Arkansas, conference foe Dallas Baptist was the only other team in the top 50 of the final RPI rankings the Bears faced off with. They were swept by the Patriots in a road series, so their final record against top-50 teams was 1-4.
Head Coach: Keith Guttin (40th season)
Missouri State head coach Keith Guttin has been at the helm for a very, very long time. In fact, only two other current head coaches (Bill Brown of George Mason and John Anderson of Minnesota) have been tenured longer. Both began their roles at their respective universities in 1982, which was the year before then-Southwest Missouri State hired Guttin as its manager.
Spending time with the Bears as a player, assistant coach and head coach, he has been involved in the program for 44 of the 58 years it has existed.
In his time with the Bears, Guttin has compiled a 1,335-857 overall record and 442-314 conference record across two different leagues. Not only does he have the most wins of any Bears head coach in its history, but he is 19th all-time in NCAA history and third among active managers.
