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By David Boyce  |  Northwest Basketball vs. Missouri Western  |  Saturday, Feb. 20, 2016  |  Bearcat Arena  |  Maryville, Mo.
Women's Basketball @ 1:30 p.m.  |  Women's Live Stats  |  Men's Basketball @ 3:30 p.m.  |  Men's Live Stats  |  Live Video  |  Live Audio

MARYVILLE, Mo. - It takes more than talented players to win a conference championship. Chemistry, hard work and a willingness to listen to the coaches are key components.
 
Junior Zach Schneider embodies all those traits and more for the Northwest Missouri State men's basketball team.
 
Schneider will never, ever say he is the reason why the Bearcats have already captured their third straight MIAA title with still three games to play. The beauty of Northwest's three-year run of conference excellence is it has had a team full of players doing the right things, making sacrifices for the betterment of the team.
 
"Our coaches do a great job of bringing in quality kids, kids that want to be here and want to work hard," Schneider said. "When you have those two things, you can really work and sell your principles. The coaches are installing in us hard work and defense and sharing the ball on offense and it works pretty well."
 
Indeed. When Northwest takes on rival Missouri Western at 3:30 p.m. Saturday at Bearcat Arena, the Bearcats will be going for their 10^th straight victory.
 
Road trips help Northwest players appreciate the support they get in Maryville. In a recent road trip to Central Oklahoma and Northeastern State, the crowds were sparse, student support a fraction of what shows up at Bearcat Arena.
 
"Traveling to other schools you are definitely thankful for the support we get here in Maryville," Schneider said. "We have been lucky enough to be able to cut down nets the last two years and we will have the opportunity, if we win on Saturday, to do that hopefully in front of a sold out crowd against our rival, so it will be fun."
 
Maybe it is a coincidence, but the nine-game winning started at Washburn when Schneider rediscovered his outside shot.
 
Before the Washburn game, Schneider, who has made more three-pointers than anybody in school history, had one game where he went 1 for 11 on three-pointers. It turned into a three-game stretch that saw him go 7 for 30 behind the arc.
 
It was hard to figure out. During the summer, Schneider tries to make 500 shots every day in the gym. During the school year, he gets up early in the morning and puts up hundreds of shots. He then goes to class and before practice starts, he tries to put up another few hundred shots.
 
"He will put up 300, 400, 500 shots every day, not when he is just missing shots, but every single day," Northwest coach Ben McCollum said. "He just works at it.
 
"When he started a little slow this season, we were like maybe we should stop him from shooting so much. We thought he was getting worn out with the amount of shots he was putting up. He kept getting more shots and raising the bar and finally he started hitting shots."
 
Part of the problem, Schneider now admits, was soreness in a knee that didn't allow him to work on his shot as much.
 
Once that healed, Schneider was able to get back to his regimen of making 500 shots per day. It all started to click for him again against Washburn.
 
"The Washburn game I hit my first three shots," Schneider said. "I knew in my head, it felt like it did last year. It felt a lot better than the first semester. I was about to get on a roll and then coincidently I broke my nose and had to wear the mask. That is where all the jokes came from."
 
Schneider went 3-for-5 on three-point shots and scored nine points in a 62-56 win at Washburn on Jan. 16. In the next game, Schneider trotted onto the court wearing a face mask to protect a broken nose.
 
Since then people have poked fun at Schneider that the mask was the reason for his hot shooting. It was understandable. In his first game with the mask, Schneider went 5-for-6 on three-point shots and followed that with going 6-for-10 from behind the arc.
 
In reality, it is the hard work Schneider has put in that has led to some outstanding shooting games. That hard work rubs off on younger players, some of whom are redshirting this season.
 
"They see the result of the process," McCollum said. "He works hard at it. If you work really hard at something, you generally get the results you want. He obviously did that."
 
Schneider plans to wear the mask for as long as he plays basketball. It has nothing to do with his shooting. Schneider, a 6-foot-7 forward, is much more than a three-point specialist. He plays defense. He sometimes guards some of the best forwards in the MIAA.
 
"That is a label a lot of shooters get," Schneider said. "One of our principles is our defense. We take a lot of pride in our defense. I feel like I am a tough player. Sometimes I'm on the other team's best player. I focus in on defense. I take pride in the little things beside the three-point shot. I block out and stuff like that."
 
Gritty defense leaves the face vulnerable.
 
"I have been hit three times in the face since then," Schneider said. "I will probably get a custom-made one, too."
 
McCollum confirms that Schneider plays tenacious defense.
 
"He is an excellent position defender," McCollum said. "He is an excellent box-out guy. His guy is not going to get the rebound. He won't get 10 defensive rebounds in a game, but his guy won't either.
 
"He is just good at using all the athleticism he has defensively. He has good feet, side to side. And he is tough. He is the furthest thing from a soft shooter. He is tough."
 
And Schneider is just one cog in the Bearcat basketball machine that is ruling the MIAA. He has enjoyed how each team has found its rhythm and developed the chemistry to consistently win.
 
"It has been awesome to see from the beginning to where we are now," Schneider said of this season. "It was stressful in the beginning because it was a different team from last year. We had to find the chemistry because it was a different chemistry from last year's team. I feel like we can physically beat opponents a lot more than last year and that is fun to do. When everyone is playing their role, we are pretty tough to stop."