Hall of Fame
A native of Rogers, Arkansas, Charlie Spoonhour served as head men’s basketball coach at Missouri State from 1983 to 1992, taking over the program the Bears’ second year in Division I and guiding MSU through its first two seasons in The Valley.
An MSU assistant coach from 1969 to 1972, he was head coach at Moberly (Missouri) and Southeastern (Iowa) Community Colleges and also worked as an assistant at Oklahoma and Nebraska, before returning to Missouri State in 1983.
Spoonhour took MSU to its first Division I postseason basketball tournament appearance in 1986, when the 24-8 Bears played in the National Invitation Tournament and upset Pittsburgh and Marquette before losing at Florida in the NIT quarterfinals.
That season started a string of eight-straight years of 20-win MSU teams which advanced to postseason play.
The 1987 Bears set a school record for victories in a 28-6 campaign in which they won the Mid-Continent Conference regular-season and tournament titles and earned an NCAA Tournament bid. In the NCAA Tournament, Missouri State upset Clemson and sustained a four-point loss to Kansas in the second round.
In 1988, MSU repeated its league title but lost in the NCAA first round to UNLV, and in 1989, MSU won the Mid-Con regular-season and tournament crowns and lost in the NCAA first round to eventual national runner-up Seton Hall.
In 1990, Missouri State again snagged a regular-season title and took an at-large NCAA bid on the way to a first-round loss to North Carolina.
MSU was the MVC runner-up in its first year in the league in 1990-91 and advanced to the second round of the NIT.
In 1991-92, Missouri State was again the MVC runner-up, but the Bears won the State Farm MVC Tournament -- the only MSU squad to do so -- to advance to the NCAA Tournament but dropped a first-round game to Michigan State.
At MSU, he finished with a 197-81 record and five trips to the NCAA Tournament for nine seasons.
He went on to seven seasons as head coach at Saint Louis University, posting a 122-90 record and three trips to the NCAA Tournament, and a two-plus season run as head coach at UNLV.
After leading Saint Louis to a 23-6 overall record and at-large bid to the 1994 NCAA Tournament, Spoonhour was named the U.S. Basketball Writers Association National Coach of the Year.
Spoonhour also has served two stints as analyst on the MVC TV Network.