Can Missouri State basketball make a special run at Arch Madness this week?

ST. LOUIS — Riding a two-game winning streak heading into the Missouri Valley Conference tournament, Missouri State will hope to grab onto its momentum and do something no Valley team has accomplished before.

The sixth-seeded Bears begin Arch Madness on Thursday night at 8:30 with an opening-round matchup with No. 11 seed Illinois Chicago at the Enterprise Center in St. Louis. The Bears won both of their two matchups against the Valley newcomers during the regular season.

A win and the Bears are on their way to a quarterfinal round at 8:30 p.m. on Friday against third-seeded Southern Illinois, which swept MSU during the regular season.

No team that has played in a Thursday opening-round game has ever won the Arch Madness championship. A No. 6 seed has never won more than two games in St. Louis. Only one time in the event's history has a team played its way out of a Thursday and qualified for the championship — Valparaiso in 2020 before it lost in the title game to Bradley.

Missouri State hopes it figured something out over the last two games so it can can make some noise in St. Louis, starting Thursday night.

"What I like about our group is that we're dialed in right now," fifth-year head coach Dana Ford said. "That's oftentimes been an issue for us for whatever reason. I do like the mental standpoint of our group right now."

Illinois Chicago almost got the Bears in Springfield in January

Missouri State swept UIC during the regular season but their last matchup came down to the wire and needed late-game heroics to avoid an upset.

The 63-59 win for the Bears came on Jan. 24. The Bears beat the Flames with ease on Nov. 30 in a 66-51 victory as a part of the two early conference games the league has played the last two years.

Illinois Chicago was much better the second time around while holding the Bears to 37.9% from the field and forcing 14 turnovers. The Flames held a one-point lead with 1:15 to go before Chance Moore responded with a dagger 3 at the other end. UIC didn't score for the remainder of the game as the Bears hit their free throws to close it out.

The Flames had won their previous two games before dropping a close 68-65 game to Southern Illinois. The wins were against Valparaiso and Evansville after three-straight losses to teams in the top five of the league. Their best win of the season came on Nov. 14 over Jacksonville State and they didn't beat a Valley team that placed in the top eight.

There has been improvement throughout the year with close losses to Belmont, Drake, Northern Iowa, Missouri State, Bradley and the Flames' two against SIU.

"When you look at their record, they could easily have five, six or seven more conference wins," Ford said. "They've been in a lot of games. With it being March, you can throw all the records out. Everyone's 0-0 and fighting for their lives."

Kendle Moore has been Missouri State's X-factor in recent games

No player, offensively, has contributed to winning more in recent games than Kendle Moore, who is playing in his final college basketball games as he exhausts his last year of eligibility.

Moore has been a double-digit scorer in each of the past three games while hitting multiple 3's in each and four in each of the last two. He scored 22 points in the Bears' win over the Sycamores on Sunday with 17 coming in the first half — which ended up being half of the Bears' first-half points. Without Moore's performance on Sunday, the Bears might have finished seventh in the league.

Moore has had an unorthodox season which saw him go from a starter for most of non-conference play to one who was coming off the bench and having a reduced role in the middle portion of the season. Over the last six games, Moore has been back in the starting lineup and has heated up at the right time.

"He's shooting the ball with extreme confidence," Ford said. "We feel like (Donovan Clay) is in a good groove, we feel like Alston Mason's in a good groove and we feel like Chance Moore can come off and give us points off the bench. We just need that fourth guy on a more consistent basis. When he's making shots, we're pretty hard to beat because those guys have been consistent."

MSU got as favorable of a path as it could get

Of the two sides of the bracket Missouri State could land on, it's on the more favorable path if it was to go on a run to a championship game.

A potential quarterfinal matchup with Southern Illinois would await on Friday. The Salukis swept the Bears during the regular season which included a 73-53 win in Carbondale on Feb. 5. Since then, the Salukis haven't played as well while playing close games with Valparaiso and UIC and a blowout defeat at Drake. It does have a close loss to Bradley and a blowout win against Northern Iowa.

Missouri State has matched up well with Southern Illinois in the past and the Salukis appear to be a better draw in the quarterfinals right now instead of Bradley, Drake or Belmont.

A potential semifinal game could put Missouri State up against Drake for the third-straight year, with the Bulldogs having won in the final seconds in the last two matchups. The Bears beat the Bulldogs twice during the regular season which included an overtime 65-62 win on Jan. 18. The Bulldogs have been the second-best team in the league since while only losing one game that came in Sunday's regular-season championship at Bradley.

How to watch Missouri State basketball vs. Illinois Chicago

Game time: Approx. 8:30 p.m. Thursday, March 2

Where: Enterprise Center, St. Louis

TV channel: Bally Sports

Stream: ESPN+ (blackout restrictions apply)

Listen: KWTO-FM 93.3

Twitter: @WyattWheeler_NL

Wyatt D. Wheeler is a reporter and columnist with the Springfield News-Leader. You can contact him at 417-371-6987, by email at wwheeler@news-leader.com or Twitter at @WyattWheeler_NL. He's also the co-host of Sports Talk on Jock Radio weekdays from 4-6 p.m.

This article originally appeared on Springfield News-Leader: Missouri State tips off Arch Madness against Illinois Chicago