| Ben Pearce and Ethan Fauss react after Pearce’s shot gave Emory an 81-78 lead with 1.4 seconds to play. Photo by Ryan Coleman, d3photography.com |
By Patrick Coleman
D3sports.com
FORT WAYNE — “I thought I was letting the guys down down the stretch, but I was just trying to stay with it, keep my confidence. I know that the next one is going to fall.”
Ben Pearce perhaps could be excused if he thought so. The Emory guard had scored 13 in the first half as his Eagles took a 47-43 lead into the locker room against Illinois Wesleyan in the Elite Eight game at Allen County War Memorial Coliseum in Fort Wayne, Indiana. His second half hadn’t been quite as productive — only five points, 0-for-2 from three-point range.
None of that mattered; Emory coach Jason Zimmerman didn’t want the ball in anyone else’s hands. “That’s who he is, right? He just said he is letting his team down. He’s controlling the game, the whole time.”
So when Emory had the ball for one final shot, in a game that was tied at 78, and he dribbled the clock down, brought the ball to the top of the arc, and shot a leaner that splashed through the net with 1.4 seconds left to win the game, there wasn’t a single player or coach connected with Emory who was surprised.
“We knew we were going ball screen. It was seven seconds. We’re just going to put the ball in Ben’s hand,” Zimmerman said. “Now I thought he may pass it, uh, but when he shot it, I thought it was in.”
Illinois Wesleyan’s full-court inbounds pass went out of bounds on the far end of the court, and Emory (26-3) hit two at the foul line, and started the celebration on an 83-78 win.
The game-winner came at the end of a sequence that had seen Illinois Wesleyan (26-5) rally from a 10-point deficit with 6:15 left. Pearce had it two foul shots to put his team up 72-62, but Mason Funk put the team on his back, scoring on a driving layup, and later adding a three-pointer to cut that lead in half. Senior Karlo Colak hit on an and-one to make it 72-70, and after a Jair Knight layup edged the lead back out to four, Noah Cleveland scored inside and then added two free throws to tie the game at 74. Funk tied it again at 76 with 58 seconds left, and Cleveland hit two foul shots with 22 seconds left to tie it up again at 78.
That left the ball in Pearce’s hands, and no, he did not let his teammates down.
Pearce for 3! 1.4 to go, Emory up three! #d3hoops pic.twitter.com/NCDeIMJ2Ib
— D3hoops/Patrick Coleman (@d3hoops) March 19, 2026
“It took a great player making a really difficult shot to knock us out,” said Illinois Wesleyan coach Ron Rose. “That was a great shot by him.”
The win overshadowed an incredible performance by IWU guard Mason Funk, who scored a game-high 36 points, hitting 15 of 27 shots from the floor and going 4-for-8 from three-point range.
“Mason’s obviously amazing. He can do anything great,” said IWU big man Noah Cleveland. “Defender, shooter who gets to the rim, sees the floor well, so when he’s hot, there’s not much you can do to stop him.”
Emory’s zone defense really extended the IWU offense and forced them to start their set sometimes 40 feet away from the basket, but it did leave room for Funk to work in the middle of the floor when the Titans could get the ball there.
“Within our offense, I occupy the middle of the floor,” Funk said afterward. “So, I think I took advantage of that and as the game went on, they started watching out for it, but not much changed. So it was just an interesting zone and I did my best to take advantages when they came to me.”
Knight led Emory with 23 points, while Pearce added 21. The Eagles shot 7-for-10 from three-point range in the first half on the way to 11-for-20 shooting from deep for the game.
In addition to Funk’s 36, Noah Cleveland added 17 points and eight rebounds.
Christopher Newport 63, St. Thomas (Texas) 59
Christopher Newport went on a hot streak in the second half, then had to hold off St. Thomas (Texas) as the Captains returned to the Division III men’s basketball national semifinals for the fourth time, defeating the Celts 63-59. The loss snapped a 26-game winning streak for St. Thomas, which was playing in the round of eight for the first time.
After a first half in which both teams struggled to find the range from the floor, Isaiah Dozier came out and hit a three-pointer right away to help set the tone for the Captains (25-5). And from there, CNU began to find its stroke. That’s what CNU has done in so many games this year — Toa Hollenbeck listed a half-dozen examples after the game. Games vs. UC Santa Cruz, Johns Hopkins, East Texas Baptist, Mary Hardin-Baylor (“that’s just in one weekend,” says John Krikorian of the two ASC teams), and more were a period of CNU finding something that worked for it in the second half.
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| Toa Hollenback had a huge day for Christopher Newport in a game in which scoring was at a premium. Photo by Ryan Coleman, d3photography.com |
“I think we’ve had like multiple first halves like that this season, like numerous,” said Toa Hollenbeck, who scored a game-high 25 points, shooting 9-for-22 from the floor. “And I think we’re pretty good in the second half. We’re a pretty good second half team when we know we had a bad first half. Coach gave us confidence at half time and I think, uh, like (Dozier) coming out and hitting that three right off the bat.”
CNU came out hitting just under 50 percent from the floor for the beginning of the second half, then went on a bit of tear, hitting seven of 11 to help the Captains open up a 50-38 lead. That included a 9-0 run which Hollenbeck capped off with back-to-back buckets.
But, like in so many instances this year, St. Thomas had a run in it. Down by 12, Nathan Kongolo came out and hit back-to-back shots from three-point range, his only two threes of the game, which cut the deficit to eight at 52-44. After a bucket by Ethan Ward pushed the Captains’ lead back out to seven, Charles Gitonga hit a pair of foul shots to cut the lead to 56-51 with 2:37 to play. CNU had a shot blocked and ended up forcing a three from the corner with the shot clock running down, which UST (29-2) converted into a Corey Thompson bucket on the other end, making it 56-53.
CNU had another one-and-done possession, and committed a foul, sending Gitonga back to the foul line with 1:30 to play. He hit both shots, sandwiched around a Captains timeout, to bring it down to a one-point game, and it was one point twice after that, at 60-59 on an Angel Johnson basket with 43 seconds left. Hollenbeck hit a pair of foul shots to make it 62-59, and Nathan Kongolo was unable to convert, hitting a three off the front of the rim from the left win. CNU controlled the long rebound and Zyir Baskerville hit one of two foul shots to seal the win.
In addition to Hollenbeck’s 25 points, Ward finished with 10 and Baskerville had seven off the bench for the Captains. CNU shot 36 percent from the floor for the game, but 45 percent in the second half, plus 11-for-15 from the foul line.
St. Thomas was led by 15 from Thompson, 14 from Gitonga and 13 from Reyce Allen.
The feeling out had taken almost the entire first half. Midway through the half, the teams were shooting a combined 8-for-33 from the floor, and at one point, St. Thomas was 3-for-8 from the foul line.
Just as the game began to get a bit of flow, technical issues derailed the entire game. The horn stuck in the on position and ran for 30 seconds non-stop going into the under-4 timeout. The clock also froze, and the shot clock did not operate, until the clock was rebooted. The horn was replaced with an air horn from the Fort Wayne Komets hockey team.
“We’ve prepared as best we could this week to attack their defense, but to go against it in person was a lot different, as you saw in the first half,” Krikorian said. “So I thought these guys did a good job in the second half of taking advantage of a few opportunities that we had.
“I think that what these guys did was show they played a little defense themselves, and I thought they really, in big moments, were able to get the stops we needed to be in there at the end.