Emory rallied from a 13-point deficit to tie the game with seconds left, but Colin Mitchell (6'5''-F) 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 (6'9''-F) 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 (6'2''-G) miss at the horn, touching off the celebration. "I've been on the other side of that and I'm so glad, and proud of our group for being resilient," said Marcus Kahn, who was coaching in the national title game for the second time, the first with Cabrini in 2012. Mary Washington (30-3) 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, then tied it with under a minute left in the game. UMW shot 49 percent from the floor in the second half, after hitting on just 29 percent before halftime. 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, missing his first seven shots. Meanwhile, Jair Knight (6'2''-G) was picking up the scoring slack, and Mario Awasum (6'6''-F) 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. Fauss stole a pass in the frontcourt with 51 seconds left and AJ Harris (6'5''-G) converted on the other end with a layup to cut the lead to 72-70. After a timeout, Mary Washington found Colin Mitchell open on the wing, where he missed a deep three, but got the offensive rebound and was fouled with 18 seconds left. Mitchell made one of two to edge the lead out to three. Emory answered when Pearce found Fauss for a three-pointer on the wing to tie the game with 12 seconds left, and Mary Washington did not call time out. Mary Wash had no timeouts remaining. But it did not matter, as Robinson was able to push the ball up the floor. He missed a stepback jumper with seconds to play, but Mitchell was right there for the putback and he put it back indeed, off glass and through the net as the horn sounded for a true buzzer-beater win for Mary Washington. " (It was) definitely the best missed shot of my life, because it led to a game winner," Robinson said after the game. He had ended up forcing up the shot because his leg was buckling. "I'm just super proud of the resiliency we showed. They tied it, they had all the excitement, and we didn't flinch," Kahn said. "We came down and, I mean, for Colin Mitchell, to get that tip. It was just awesome." "I know a lot of pressure and a lot of the defenders were on Kye," Mitchell said. "He brings two defenders there in that last possession. We feel confident that if his leg didn't buckle, you would've made a shot. But his leg buckled up. He shot it. No one guarded me, so I guess thank you." Robinson led Mary Washington with 27 points, while Jay Randall (6'4''-F) added 14 and Kaden Bates (6'3''-G) 10. All three made the all-tournament team, along with Pearce and Knight. Knight and Fauss had 24 points apiece for Emory (27-4). "We reminded each other in the locker room at half that we've been in that very same situation," said Kahn, "even in this tournament where I thought the second round game, we had a poor first half, but came out and played really well in the second." 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."
Courtesy of: d3hoops.com

Player of the Year: Scott Gyimesi (6'6''-F) of Tufts

Coach of the Year: Joe Reilly of Wesleyan

Most Outstanding Player: Scott Gyimesi (6'6''-F) of Tufts

Rookie of the Year: KJ Neville (6'3''-G) of Amherst

Coach of the Year: James Cosgrove of Trinity (Conn.)

Second Team
Raphel Laurent (6'3''-G) of UMass Boston
Thomas Ferdinando (6'3''-G) of Babson
Jordan Cooper (6'0''-G) of Keene St.
Elias Rodl (6'6''-F) of Brandeis
Timmy O'Toole (6'5''-G) of Babson

Second Team
Kevin Nowoswiat (6'4''-G) of F&M
Mohamed Toure (6'6''-G) of Ursinus
Charlie Jackson (6'4''-G) of Johns Hopkins
Austin Finarelli (6'0''-G) of Elizabethtown
Phanique Dupree (6'6''-F) of Albright
Marquis Ratcliff (6'7''-F) of Moravian

Second Team
Philip Dotson (6'0''-PG) of Rhodes
Omari DeVeaux (6'2''-G) of VWU
Jabril Robinson (6'1''-G) of RMC
Toa Hollenbeck (6'3''-G) of CNU
Jackson Bell (6'4''-G) of Roanoke
Doug Smith (6'8''-F) of Pfeiffer

D3hoops.com All-Region 10 first team 2026

Johnson

Overby

Ramirez

Johnson

Gordon

First Team
Hudson Johnson (6'1''-G) of UMHB
Tanner Overby (6'0''-G) of Willamette
Joey Ramirez (6'2''-G) of Concordia, TX
Angel Johnson (6'2''-G) of St.Thomas, TX
Lucas Gordon (206-F-2004) of Mt.Gambier

Second Team
Omari Ferguson (6'3''-G) of Redlands
Corey Thompson (6'2''-G) of St.Thomas, TX
Will Householter (6'1''-G) of CMS
Jake Heberle (6'3''-G) of Chapman
Reid Jones (6'2''-G) of CMS
Christian Bryant (6'8''-F) of HSU