Inductees

On the inside of the locker room door hangs a map of the United States, with a bull’s eye over a quaint campus just south of Branson.

The motivator has been there for years and explains almost everything about the College of the Ozarks Women’s Basketball Program.

“I would always let the players know the target was on our back,” longtime coach George Wilson said. “If we lost, it would make the other team’s season.”

“We still touch it,” before leaving the locker room, current coach Becky Vest Mullis said of the map.

It’s no wonder, then, the Lady Bobcats are among the winningest in NAIA basketball, and the success is why the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame proudly inducted the College of the Ozarks Women’s Basketball Program with the Class of 2018.

With recruits mostly from southwest Missouri, C of O has advanced to 24 NAIA Division II Tournaments, including every year but one since 1997 when the college hired Wilson as coach.

The Lady Bobcats have reached nine Elite Eights and finished as the national runner-up five times (2006, 2007, 2008, 2012, 2014).

Additionally, the program has produced at least 30 NAIA All-Americans since 1991, but mostly in the 2000s. The list includes seven First Team NAIA All-Americans – five who earned such distinction twice.

Overall, it’s a story that began like so many others, with humble beginnings in 1979, when C of O had only three wins.

Now consider these numbers: 39, 33, 27, six. In order, that’s the number of seasons C of O has field teams, its total winning seasons, 20-win seasons and 30-win seasons.

Marilyn Graves was the first coach. Coaches Grace Welch (118 wins from 1986-1991) and Joe Franks (107 wins from 1992 to 1997) built the Lady Bobcats into a consistent winner. Wilson and Mullis, who was Wilson’s assistant for 11 seasons, ratcheted up the success, driving the two-laners of the Ozarks and finding gems.

Since 1998, the program has 585 wins – an average of almost 28 wins a year.

“We’re tough,” Mullis said of the common thread of Lady Bobcats basketball since the late 1990s, “and we’ve had a lot of blue-collar kids who bought into C of O.”

Wilson’s first C of O team, with only eight players, won 25 games and reached the NAIA D-II Tournament, losing in the first round but became a motivator considering the Lady Bobcats lost to the eventual national champion.

The next year set much in motion. Kim Greenhaw from Mount Judea, Ark., scored 43 points in a first-round win against Western Oregon, a team stocked with NCAA Division I transfers, and C of O reached the quarterfinals.

The 2002 team was the first to 30 wins.

The 33-win 2006 team won a quarterfinal after Rebekah Howard hit a 3-pointer – she had never made one all season — to force overtime on a night when Janessa DeMuth, the Lady Bobcats’ lights-out defender, had fouled out in regulation.

In the next game, Cara Painter – an Oklahoma State transfer who led the nation that season in blocked shots – blocked a shot to send C of O to the finals.

Branson standout Kayli Combs, the Missouri Valley Conference Freshman of the Year from Missouri State University, transferred ahead of 2007 and gave the Lady Bobcats an incredible backcourt with DeMuth.

A year later, Combs banked in a deep 3-pointer in the semifinals to keep the tournament run alive. Those two seasons led to 34 and a program-best 35 wins.

“(Success) wouldn’t have been possible without the great kids we’ve had,” Mullis said. “We’ve had farm kids, city kids and high school rivals. Our 06-08 teams had (Central Ozark Conference) rivals who hated each other and, at C of O, played for each other.”

The 30-win 2012 team excelled defensively.

“I thought we had a chance to win games,” Wilson said, “but I didn’t think we could win four (to reach the finals).”

The 2014 team, Mullis’ first, was a 31-win Cinderella, reaching the finals despite being the next-to-last at-large team invited to the tournament.

Overall, Wilson and Mullis are quick to credit community support as well as the influence of the Missouri State Lady Bears under coach Cheryl Burnett across high school basketball in the Ozarks.

“We’ve been able to recruit southwest Missouri and find talent here,” Mullis said. “Kids want to stay home, and they want to go somewhere where they have a chance to play for something.”

That is, play at a place on the basketball map.