Ancilla headed to nationals
DONALDSON - They’re in. After some anxious moments when it lost the automatic bid from its regional tourney, former No. 1 ranked Ancilla College’s men’s basketball team received the one and only at-large bid into the National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) Division II Men’s Basketball Championship tournament.
“We are very appreciative to the selection committee for getting this bid,” said Ancilla head coach Brian Pearison. “The only reason they had an at-large bid this year is because of Covid. There was one region that did not have any teams and that left open one spot. They said they looked at our entire season and the fact that we spent several weeks at No. 1.”
The Chargers’ only loss this season came in the semifinals of the Great Lakes District B Regional 12 tournament.
“We had a great season going until we had the Covid pause and coming out of that having to play a talented Mott Community College team (in the regional),” Pearison added. “We were not focused and got run off our own court, despite having beat Mott two weeks before.”
Each regional winner received an automatic bid into the 16-team national championships so Ancilla had to wait until the pairings were announced live Monday, April 12, during the NJCAA Selection Show to see who would fill the one at-large slot. The championship tourney runs April 20-24 at the Mary Miller Center on the campus of Danville Area Community College in Danville, Illinois.
Ancilla (13-1) enters the tourney as the No. 5 seed and will face the No. 12 seed, Southern Arkansas Tech (17-4), on Wednesday, April 21 at 2 p.m. EDT. The game will be streamed live at https://www.njcaa.org/ network. SAU-TECH is the South Central champion and averages 82 points per game. Ancilla averages 100.9 ppg.
“They are a good, solid team,” said Pearison of the SAUTECH Rockets. “They have a well-rounded team. They have a 6-10 guy (Treyon Johnson 11.7 ppg, 9.3 rpg) and two pretty good guards.”
Ancilla has - at least - two pretty good guards, as well as a number of other strong players. In fact, the team’s depth is one of the main reasons for its success. This is not a one-man show by any means. In fact, seven players received postseason honors from the MCCAA Western Conference.
“That’s amazing. That has never happened before,” added Pearison. “I’ve never heard anything like that. That’s phenom
enal. Normally, you feel good if you have three.”
Named first team Allconference were Jakylen Thomas, Rico Swanson, Jr. and Caleb Brown. Thomas was also selected to the Allfreshman team, and was named Freshman of the Year, as well as the overall Player of the Year. Marco Beverly was a second team All-conference selection, with Cortney Shorter, Brock Cosey and Shak Johnson getting honorable mentions. Beverly and Shorter were also named to the All-defensive team and Beverly was selected as Defensive Player of the Year.
Stat-wise, six players average in double figures, led by Thomas at 18.7 ppg, followed by Shorter (12.4), Beverly and Brown (11.9), Cosey (10.6) and Swanson, Jr. (10.1). Beverly (8.4 rpg) and Brown (7.0 rpg) are the leading rebounders, Swanson, Jr. the assist (7.3 apg) and steals (1.8 spg) leader.
If Ancilla wins its first game it would play the winner of the No. 4 seed
Garrett (15-0) vs. No. 13 Dallas College-richland (15-2) contest on Thursday, April 22 at 9 p.m. EDT. The Final Four is set for April 23 with the championship game scheduled for April 24. The Chargers could meet the No. 1 seed Davidson-davie (20-2) in the Final Four.
“I haven’t looked ahead,” claimed Pearison. “We have to focus on the opponent we have in front of us. That’s one of the toughest things about this tournament - you might only have 24 hours to prepare for the next team.”
It takes four consecutive wins to win the national championship. Once a team loses, it drops to the loser’s bracket and takes that team out of the championship race.
The complete bracket can be found at:
https://d2o2figo6ddd0g.cloudfront.net/u/x/ r45dkvgr2kaatc/2020-21_ Dii_mbb_champ_1.pdf
This is Ancilla’s second trip to nationals. The first time was just two years ago when the Chargers finished eighth going in as the 12-seed.