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How an Illinois prepster and last guy on the bench has sparked Missouri State's turnaround

Feb 18, 2020 at 5:35 PM

PEORIA — Oh, the irony.

Missouri State was picked as the Missouri Valley Conference favorite in October because of the highly touted talent coach Dana Ford brought to Springfield.

But a funny thing happened on the way to March — Ford couldn’t make all that talent fit together to win games.

The second-year coach didn’t fault the players for an underachieving 10-13 record at the beginning of February. He blamed himself.

“I have to get them out there better than I'm getting them out there,” he said.