MARYVILLE, Mo. — Exactly a year after it earned a trip to the NCAA South Central Regional, the Northwest Missouri State Bearcats are sitting at home, pondering the “what ifs.”

This season ended far too early for senior forward Hunter Henry, who on Wednesday was named a repeat Daktronics all-region performer. Henry received second-team honors — one rung down from last year’s regional honor — sharing that level with fellow MIAA athletes Lamar Wilbern of Emporia State and Michael Jenkins of Nebraska-Omaha. In addition, Sanijay Watts of Central Missouri and Matt Rogers and D’Ante Harris of Southwest Baptist earned first-team honors.

While Henry hung up his uniform for the last time on Feb. 28 in loss against Missouri Southern, the others trudged on to the MIAA tournament, and some even beyond.

“It’s been tough, especially not being as successful as we would’ve liked to have been,” Henry said of his senior season.

But Henry, his teammates and coach Steve Tappmeyer all held out hope until the end that a 17-year string of MIAA championship appearances would remain intact.

In fact, the eighth and final MIAA berth was still up for grabs in a must-win season finale at Southern. But Northwest’s confidence had been too shaken from the previous two games to recover.

“I thought we had a shot to get to the tournament and be a dangerous team right up until the Central Missouri game down here,” Tappmeyer said.

It was a perfect storm working against the Bearcats. A Central Missouri team playing some of its best basketball of the season was buoyed by its biggest crowd of the campaign in a nationally televised game in a 30-point rout.

“I just know that it was no advantage to the visiting team that all you’re doing is going to play in front of their biggest crowd of the year and catch them at their best,” Tappmeyer said. “We got knocked back on our heels. Our confidence that late in the year was pretty much shattered.”

If Central Missouri put the Bearcats on the ropes, nationally ranked Southwest Baptist delivered a devastating body shot the next Wednesday.

Without the ability to catch their breath against a lesser opponent, the Bearcats’ shaken confidence was all but wiped away.

“It was a hard sell to say we were good enough to beat Baptist when you’re just coming off that whuppin’,” Tappmeyer said.

Northwest had seemed to right its ship, if not its win-loss record, during a January stretch. The young, inexperienced Bearcats had no friend in the schedule maker, with five of their first six MIAA games on the road and the only home game in that span right after Christmas before a small crowd in an energy-starved atmosphere.

But then the team racked up home victories against Central Missouri, Emporia State and Missouri Southern, and had close contests against Western (one a victory), Pittsburg State and Fort Hays State.

“We knew when we went and beat Western down at Western, that kind of opened the door back up,” Tappmeyer said.

But then came the Central Missouri game. Now Tappmeyer is left with some major decisions.

Admitting his roster includes some players that clearly are unlikely to develop into MIAA-caliber athletes, Tappmeyer is hitting the recruiting trail hard despite having only one graduating senior to replace.

“We’re going to need to bring some players in,” Tappmeyer said. “There’s some guys we’ve got that it’s a stretch to think they can play at this level.”

Tappmeyer likes to build his program through talented high school players and occasionally plug holes with transfers. But those high school recruits will need to be able to contribute immediately, he said.

And as for Henry’s position, the hole to be plugged is huge. The 6-foot-9 team leader finished his career as the fifth all-time leading scorer in program history with 1,592 points and was just the third player in school history to reach 800-plus rebounds.

His graduation leaves the Bearcats with only freshmen Jake Reinders (6-9) and little-used Vernon Weddle (6-8) as its big men, and Tappmeyer hints that he will be looking for a transfer student as Reinders — at least in the near future — is unlikely to be the heir apparent.

“(Reinders) has to have a huge summer,” Tappmeyer said. “I think he’s going to be a good player at some point, but right now there’s a big gap between a Hunter Henry and a Jake Reinders.”

Sports reporter Rick Dunaway can be reached at rickd@npgco.com