| Jay Randall had some key buckets in the second half. Photo by Ryan Coleman, d3photography.com |
By Patrick Coleman
D3sports.com
INDIANAPOLIS — Emory rallied from a 13-point deficit to tie the game with seconds left, but Colin Mitchell got the putback at the buzzer to win it for Mary Washington, 75-73, as Mary Washington took away the 2026 Division III men’s basketball national title.
UMW blew the game open with a 14-2 run in the second half before Emory rallied to tie the game on an Ethan Fauss three-pointer with 12 seconds left. Mary Washington came down to the other end of the floor, and Mitchell was there to putback a Kye Robinson miss at the horn, touching off the celebration.
Mitchell at the buzzer! Mary Washington wins it, 75-73! And that’s how the Division III MBB season ends! #d3hoops pic.twitter.com/PDyXrNZLVW
— D3hoops/Patrick Coleman (@d3hoops) April 5, 2026
Mary Washington fought off a tough first half shootingwise and had a lot of success from the floor, including a stretch in which Robinson scored seven points himself in a 9-0 run. UMW also had to fight off a hard charge from Emory down the stretch in which the Eagles from Atlanta cut the lead to four.
Emory guard Ben Pearce banged his knee on the floor hard early in the second half, with his team up 40-35, and Fauss followed with a three-pointer to extend the lead to eight, but Mary Washington scored the next nine points, seven of them by Robinson to go up 44-43.
Pearce struggled mightily from the floor all night, but especially after the injury. Meanwhile, Jair Knight was picking up the scoring slack, and Mario Awasum was pulling down big numbers of rebounds to keep his team close. And Pearce finally hit his first field goal with 1:29 left in the game, a three which cut the Mary Washington lead to 72-68.
Robinson led Mary Washington with 27 points, while Jay Randall added 14 and Kaden Bates 10.
The first half was a half of runs, as Emory rallied from a 17-9 deficit and went on a 9-0 run behind two big three-pointers from Ethan Fauss to take an 18-17 lead. Emory added a 7-0 run to take a 26-22 lead later in the half, including a three-pointer from Mario Awasum. Mary Washington answered with a 6-0 mini-run of its own to go back up 28-26, but Emory scored the last four, the final bucket emphatically, as Jair Knight threw one down with 2.5 seconds left off a feed from AJ Harris to give his team a 30-28 lead at the half.
Knight had 13 points in the first half, while Awasum had five points, 13 boards and two blocked shots.
Pearce struggled from the floor, hitting just one of his eight shots. “Ben let the game come to him and we told him to be patient,” said Emory coach Jason Zimmerman. “That’s on me to give him better looks than that. He was patient and showed a great deal of trust in our team.”
This recap will be updated.