Celebrating the 20th Anniversary of the 1999-00 Embry-Riddle Men's Basketball National Championship

From 1993-99, the NAIA II Men's Basketball National Championship was held in Nampa, Idaho. For the first five seasons Montgomery Fieldhouse on the campus of Northwest Nazarene served as host before the Idaho Center took over for the 1998 and 1999 national tournaments.
 
Following the 1999 event in Nampa, the NAIA agreed to move the tournament to College of the Ozarks in Point Lookout, Missouri, right next to the popular vacation destination of Branson. 
 
More centrally-located in the middle of the country, College of the Ozarks proved to be an ideal location the best seven days of collegiate basketball in the country. 
 
Al Waller, long-time Men's Basketball Head Coach and Athletic Director at College of the Ozarks, was one of the driving forces behind getting the tournament moved to Branson and served as Co-Director of the NAIA II National Tournament for the vast majority of the 18 tournaments held at Keeter Gymnasium.
 
Waller's sales pitch worked as the tournament was moved to Branson on a trial basis after a fairly successful run in Idaho, as the NAIA looked to see how the tournament would operate in a smaller venue and much different locale then the previous seven seasons.
 
"The Branson tourist season typically didn't begin until April," John Phillips, ERAU's Director of Athletics and Voice of the Eagles said. "The town was normally pretty quiet in March, but the Midwest hospitality was never in short supply. Having the tournament in Branson was a big deal to that town, we were appreciated, we were valued, and most importantly, we were welcomed everywhere we went."
 
Waller's Bobcat team was the very definition of a March Cinderella during the 2000 tournament. One of just three teams to pull an upset in the opening round, the host Ozarks blitzed through its side of the bracket, taking down No. 14 Northwestern (Iowa), No. 3 Huron (S.D.), No. 11 Oregon Tech and No. 2 Huntington (Ind.) to set up the national title game against Embry-Riddle.
 
The Eagles' honorary coach partners during the 2000 tournament were the members of the Branson Chamber of Commerce. Had the Chamber not been paired with a team that stuck around for a while, or had the relationship between sponsor and team not worked out, perhaps the partnership between the Chamber of Commerce, College of the Ozarks and the NAIA may have soured as well.
 
Waller, who retired in 2015 after 36 years as a Bobcat, spoke to the 2012-13 version of the Embry-Riddle basketball team prior to their national tournament run that season. Waller of course spoke highly of Coach Ridder and of the 1999-00 national champion team, but added an interesting tidbit, saying that many in the College of Ozarks community truly believed that if the Eagles had not won the national title in that first season in Branson, the NAIA might not have allowed Ozarks to continue to host, using a possible Bobcat national title as the impetus to move the tournament somewhere neutral.
 
Thankfully, that didn't happen.