Salt Lake Wins First Ever National Title with 67-60 Win Over Midland
The moral of the 2009 NJCAA Men's DI Basketball Championship Game? Don't judge a book by its cover. Salt Lake Community College (Utah) claimed its first-ever national title on March 21 at the Sports Arena in Hutchinson with a comeback for the ages.
Down 51-36 with a little over 11 minutes left in regulation, it looked as if Midland College (Texas) would claim the fifth NJCAA title for the state of Texas in six years. The Chaparrals dominated the first half and continued to impose their will on the Bruins of Salt Lake for much of the second half.
But like many title games of years past, a big lead vanished. The Bruins electrifyed a crowd of over 5,000 with a 22-1 run, including 17 unanswered points. Ricky Shoff (6'3''-G)'s three-pointer with 5 minutes and 22 seconds remaining gave Salt Lake its first lead since early in the first half.
Unfortunately for Midland, Norm Parrish's team would never give up the lead, hitting free thows down the stretch to clinch the school's first-ever NJCAA title.
Lost in the scoring blitz by Salt Lake was their aggressive defense that shut down Midland when it mattered most, holding the Chaparrals to just nine points in the final 11-plus minutes. In fact, defense was a big factor in Salt Lake's title run as the limited their opponents to just 35.6 percent shooting in Hutchinson, which ranks seventh in tournament history.
Salt Lake forward Nate Bendall (6'8''-F/C) led the team with 21 points on 8 of 11 shooting from the field. He will be playing ball next year at Utah State. Tournament MVP D.J. Wright (6'7''-F) had 12 for the Bruins in the title game, but averaged 24 points a contest for the tournament and led all players with 10.8 rebounds a game.
Midland was led by Greg Hill (6'2''-G) who finished with 25 points thanks to 6 of 12 shooting from behind the three-point arc, which ties a tourney record for most three-pointers made in a title game.
Salt Lake finishes the year at 31-6, while Midland caps their season at 33-4.
Courtesy of NJCAA

Johnson County Clinches Men's D2 Title with 63-49 win over Kirkwood
The NJCAA DII Men's Basketball National Championship Game featured Johnson County Community College and Kirkwood Community College. Johnson County advanced to the championship game by winning over Monroe Community College and Phoenix College. Kirkwood advanced to the championship game by defeating Columbus State Community College and Lincoln College.
Johnson County started the game off in a 2/3 zone defense. Kirkwood had troubles running their offense against the zone their first couple of trips down the floor, but still managed to jump out to a 4-0 lead. Kirkwood tried a 2/3 zone themselves on the defensive end for a couple possessions. It seemed to cause Johnson County fits, only scoring 2 points in the first 6 minutes of the game. The scoring stayed low, even past the midway point of the half with Kirkwood leading 13-7. Johnson County Head Coach Mike Jeffers showed some frustration with the effort of his team, calling a timeout to motivate them with 8 minutes remaining in the half. A couple Kirkwood turnovers let Johnson County crawl back and tie the game with 5 minutes remaining. Jarvis Williams grabbed a couple key offensive rebounds and put-backs to for Kirkwood. Johnson County was able to get a couple buckets from Nafis Ricks (6'2''-G) to give his team another short lived lead. The teams exchanged leads a couple more times, but Johnson County went into the locker room with the 25-23 edge.

1ST HALF LEADERS FOR JOHNSON COUNTY:
Nafis Ricks, 6'2' Soph, 12 pts
Jared Henry (6'0''-G), Fresh, 5 pts

1ST HALF LEADERS FOR KIRKWOOD:
Joel Barkers (6'6''-F), Soph, 6 pts
Rashad Basey (6'3''-G), Soph, 5 pts

Johnson County stayed on top for the first couple minutes of the game, with Kirkwood not being able to get anything going on offense. Johnson County switched to a 1-3-1 zone defense that kept Kirkwood from getting the first pass made in their offense. Kirkwood made numerous turnovers in a row, keeping them from getting much of any points on the board. They were only able to score 2 points in the first 7 minutes of the 2nd half. Rashad Basey, an impact player for Kirkwood, was sidelined for a majority of the 2nd half due to getting his 4th foul. Johnson County held a growing lead of 32-25 with 13 minutes to play. Bryce Brunz (6'0''-G) hit a deep 3-pointer for Kirkwood to give a big spark to his teammates, but they were quickly silenced by a 3-pointer by Kenny Moore (6'6''-F) on the other end. Johnson County still held a 37-29 lead with 10 minutes remaining in the contest. The physical nature of the game increased and a lot of fouls were called. Bryce Brunz was able to hit another 3-pointer for Kirkwood to bring it within 5 points. Nafis Ricks and Kenny Moore continued to be big offensive threats, keeping Johnson County at around a 5-7 point lead. By the 5 minute mark, Kirkwood was down 10 points. Turnovers continued to haunt them offensively, and Johnson County did not hesitate to convert them to points. Kirkwood came out in a full-court press out of a timeout, which caused a couple Johnson County turnovers. Kirkwood had numerous consecutive turnovers that destroyed everything that they had going. Rory Spencer (6'8''-F) had a monster dunk in transition that was an exclamation point to them building a 16 point lead with 3 minutes to play. Kirkwood Head Coach Doug Wagemester called a timeout in effort to develop a final strategy to perform a miracle comeback. They fouled and forced up as many shots as they could, but turnovers were still the demon that they could not overcome. Johnson County went on to win the NJCAA DII Men's Basketball National Championship 63-49.

GAME LEADERS FOR JOHNSON COUNTY:
Nafis Ricks, 21 pts
Kenny Moore, 13 pts
Jared Henry, 11 pts

GAME LEADERS FOR KIRKWOOD:
Bryce Brunz, 12 pts
Joel Barkers, 10 pts
Rashad Basey, 9 pts