Bearcat men’s basketball players, coaches of 1980s teams reunite

[This story is published in conjunction with the winter 2023 edition of the Northwest Alumni Magazine. View the print version of the magazine in its entirety by clicking here.]

Ben McCollum and the Bearcat men’s basketball team had some special guests watching them in Bearcat Arena on Aug. 25 when they took the floor for their first practice of the 2023-24 season.

During a break in the action, McCollum – a benefactor of the men in the bleachers who donned the Bearcat uniform during the 1980s and laid a foundation for the program’s continued success – approached the first row where Dr. Lionel Sinn was seated and presented him with a hat commemorating one of the Bearcat basketball program’s recent national championships.

With Steve Tappmeyer joining McCollum and Sinn, the last three head coaches of the Northwest men’s basketball program – also the three winningest coaches in its history – were together in the same arena for a couple hours that afternoon. Sinn coached the team from 1979 to 1988, before handing the reins to Tappmeyer, who led the team until 2009. McCollum, a player and graduate assistant for Tappmeyer, was named the head coach in 2009 and led the Bearcats to their first of four NCAA Division II men’s basketball national championships in 2017.

“To think it would grow into what it is now, I like to think Coach Sinn and what he did here kind of laid the foundation and got things going,” said Tappmeyer, who was an assistant coach with Sinn from 1981 through 1985. “Then, what Mac’s done here – if anybody would ever say of any D-II in the country, you could win four national championships in five years – it just doesn’t happen in basketball.”

Sinn, Tappmeyer and a dozen of their former players gathered for a couple days in August to explore Maryville and the Northwest campus, taking in all that’s changed and all that’s stayed the same. After a morning of golf at the Maryville Country Club and lunch at The Palms, they took up a section of bleachers in the corner of Bearcat Arena, reminiscing more and smiling with pride for all the program has achieved since they occupied the gymnasium.

“It’s really neat, and I’m like a proud parent, looking back at what the guys are doing now and thinking, I played here, I coached here, I lived here,” said Vic Coleman, a standout player for Bearcat basketball teams from 1980 to 1984. “Once a Bearcat, always a Bearcat. It’s just awesome.”

Tony White, who played with the Bearcats from 1981 through 1985 and helped orchestrate the reunion, added, “Seeing Coach Tapp take it to another level and then seeing Coach McCollum take it – like a rocket ship taking off – we feel like we’re part of it.”  

Tappmeyer said the motivation for the reunion was an opportunity to bring Sinn back to the Northwest campus. It was the first time many of the players from the Sinn era had been together since their Bearcat careers ended.

“You are always a family, and so when you don’t see family for 20 to 30 years and you get together, it’s like, wow,” Coleman said.

When Sinn arrived at the University in the summer of 1979, only one Northwest men’s basketball team had won more than 15 games in a season and the Bearcats hadn’t sniffed an MIAA championship or postseason invitation since the 1940s teams led by Bearcat icons Ryland Milner and Sparky Stalcup.

A native of Bloomington, Indiana, Sinn had earned bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees at Indiana University, where he served as a graduate assistant with coaching legend Bob Knight during the 1972-73 season. That year, the Hoosiers advanced to the Final Four of the NCAA Division I national basketball tournament and lost to John Wooden’s undefeated UCLA Bruins, who went on to claim their seventh consecutive national championship.

Sinn had earned coach of the year honors at several Indiana high schools before transitioning to the college coaching ranks. His Northwest tenure was preceded by six seasons at Bethel University, an NAIA institution in Tennessee. He also served as that school’s athletics director and was the founding coach of its baseball program, but he was ready for a change in 1979.

“Northwest basketball was kind of up and down,” Sinn said. “I was looking for a program where I could test myself.”

Sinn also had a bit of the Bearcats instilled in him already. Knight had coached alongside Henry Iba, who accumulated a record of 93-15 and three MIAA championships in four seasons at Northwest from 1929 to 1933 before cementing his Hall of Fame status at Oklahoma State University. Additionally, Sinn knew Stalcup, who played for Iba and succeeded him as head coach at Northwest before having more success at the University of Missouri.

Those influences helped Sinn and his motion offense turn Northwest into a winning program.

“Back in Indiana high school, I was a man-to-man defensive philosophy kind-of-coach,” Sinn said. “But, offensively, I was pattern-oriented. I was with (Knight) as a GA for about a year and a half, and that year when he went to the Final Four, he put in his motion offense. … He had talked to Henry Iba and two or three of his buddies from the old days to help him. He knew what he wanted to do with a freelance offense, a motion offense. I believe in it because it teaches your players to read the defense, teaches them to learn basketball and to do what the defense gives you.”

During a time when only 32 teams qualified for the NCAA Division II basketball national tournament, Sinn’s 1981-82 Northwest team finished 20-10 – the most wins for Bearcat men’s basketball since Stalcup’s 1940 team – and advanced to Northwest’s first-ever appearance in the South Central Regional, which the Bearcats did again during the 1983-1984 season. The latter team might have been Sinn’s best with a record of 24-7 and a spot among the top five teams in Division II throughout the season.  

Down the stretch in 1984, the Bearcats knocked off the University of Central Missouri, 64-57, in overtime at Bearcat Arena. Three weeks later in Warrensburg, Central took a 55-53 win. In the MIAA tournament, Northwest beat Southeast Missouri State University, 80-72, before losing again to Central, 70-65.

“In our league, it was kind of us, Central Missouri and Southeast Missouri during that stretch,” Tappmeyer said. “Central Missouri in ’84 won the national championship and lost three games that year. They lost to Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Northwest Missouri State. We got them here, and at their place we were tied, and at the free throw line with a little over 10 seconds to go, missed the free throw, and they hit one at the buzzer.”

White said the 1983-84 basketball season ranks among his favorite memories.

“We always thought we were going to win, and we found out the other teams were a little intimidated when they saw us warming up because they knew we could beat them a number of different ways,” White said. “Just the competitive nature of being a part of the team and going out, competing against these other teams as a unit. We all got along. There was never a problem with chemistry.”

Coleman, one of the most heralded players in Bearcat men’s basketball history, said Sinn’s teams worked hard and had fun doing it.

“Our home court was such an advantage,” Coleman said. “It’s beautiful now, but when we played, it was just plain, brown bleachers. The fans were behind us 100 percent, and all the teams to come in – Central, Southeast, whoever we played here – they knew, ‘It’s gonna be hard to beat those guys.’”

Coleman was named to the all-MIAA first-team in 1983 and 1984 and earned honorable mention All-America honors in 1984. During his junior season of 1982-83, he led the Bearcats in scoring, rebounding, assists and field-goal percentage. In 1983-84, he led the team in scoring and steals. He finished his four-year career at Northwest as the program leader in points (1,795) – a record eclipsed only in recent years by Trevor Hudgins, Justin Pitts, Diego Bernard and Ryan Hawkins – as well as assists (467) and games (114).

Coleman was a 10th-round draft selection in 1984 by the NBA’s Kansas City Kings before that franchise’s final season and its move to Sacramento, but he didn’t make the team’s regular season roster. He played with the CBA’s Kansas City Sizzlers during the 1985-86 season and coached in the St. Joseph School District before returning to Northwest as an assistant coach for the 1987-88 season.

The Bearcats of the early 1980s also featured Joe Hurst, who blocked a Bearcat record 53 shots during the 1983-84 season and holds the program record for blocked shots in a career with 153. He also remains in the program’s top 10 for career scoring average (14.5 points per game), rebounds (777) and free throws made (310). He was named to the all-MIAA first team in 1984, when he led the Bearcats in rebounding, and 1985, when he led the team in scoring and steals, before going on to a pro career in Australia.

The 1986-87 team finished 19-10 and claimed Northwest’s only MIAA regular season championship of the Sinn era and the University’s first men’s basketball title since Ryland Milner’s 1946 team. That 1986-87 Bearcats also featured five starters who averaged double figures in scoring.

Sinn’s 1983-84 team is in Northwest’s M-Club Hall of Fame along with three of his Bearcat players – Coleman, Hurst and Bob Sundell.

Without pause, Sinn says a hallmark of his Bearcat squads was unselfish players who wanted the team to succeed.

“We looked for a good player that fit what we were looking for, anywhere we could find him,” Sinn said. “We were just fortunate to find players that make you look good as a coach. That’s all there is to it.”

Said White, “We all got along, but we knew we had to work hard, and if we didn’t we got called out on it. It created a culture. Coach McCollum talks about that all the time. You’ve got to create that culture and everybody’s got to buy into that culture.”

After the 1987-88 season, Sinn departed Northwest to return to his home state and coach at Southern Indiana University. In nine seasons with the Bearcats, Sinn accumulated 164 wins with a .643 winning percentage and finished just one season – his second at Northwest – with a sub-.500 record.

“He loved Northwest and loved Maryville, but he’s an Indiana guy,” Tappmeyer said. “He’d been Bobby Knight’s graduate assistant at Indiana. His wife’s dad was the PA announcer for 40 years for Hoosier football and basketball and has pretty deep roots there. So when Southern Indiana came after him, I think it was leaving a place he loved to go back to a place where he really had a lot of deep roots.”

To replace Sinn, Northwest called on his former assistant, Tappmeyer, who had completed three seasons as head coach at East Central College in Union, Missouri. With his signature green towel draped over his shoulder, Tappmeyer led Northwest men’s basketball to new heights. In his first year as head coach, Tappmeyer’s 1988-89 team finished 21-9, claiming the program’s first MIAA tournament championship and a spot in the NCAA Division II tournament. Tappmeyer’s teams earned the program’s first Elite Eight appearances in 2001-02 and 2003-04.

“Tapp took it many steps further. I mean, just a fantastic job,” Sinn said before turning his attention and nodding at McCollum. “And then this man, just unbelievable, four championships. What a great success story.”