ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) \u2014 Emory University fell just short of its first men\u2019s basketball title Sunday, losing to Mary Washington University 75-73 on a heartbreaking buzzer-beater.<\/p>\n
Emory\u2019s tournament run was defined by close games and the championship game was no different.<\/p>\n
Emory faced an uncertain road on the way to the championship game. The Eagles were the No. 2 team in the country after coming into the tournament with a 20-3 regular season record.<\/p>\n
They had to come back against Roanoke in the second round and fend off Illinois Wesleyan in the Elite Eight after blowing an 11-point lead. D3hoops.com National Player of the Year Ben Pearce came through with a last-second shot against Wesleyan to send Emory to the Final Four, where the Eagles cruised past Christopher Newport University 72-58.<\/p>\n
Neither team led by double digits until there were less than six minutes remaining.<\/p>\n
A five-minute scoreless streak by Emory allowed Mary Washington to pull away 65-50 with 4:40 remaining before Ethan Fauss, who played the hero for the Eagles in their second-round game against Roanoke, led a late charge.<\/p>\n
Fauss scored 10 of Emory\u2019s final 23 points, including a three-pointer to tie the game at 73-73 with 12 seconds left. <\/p>\n
Jair Knight and Fauss scored 24 apiece to lead Emory. Mario Awasum had nine points and 19 rebounds.<\/p>\n
It was all for naught; Mary Washington forward Colin Mitchell responded with a jumper as time expired to seal the program\u2019s first national title.<\/p>\n
Pearce was almost a nonfactor for Emory. The school\u2019s all-time leading scorer and the only one to top 2,000 points missed all seven of his shots until hitting a 3-pointer with 90 seconds left. He was 7 for 11 at the foul line.<\/p>\n
Mary Washington\u2019s bench was a contributing factor in its win over the Eagles. All but one player on the Mary Washington roster scored, compared with three for Emory.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 WANF. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) \u2014 Emory University fell just short of its first men\u2019s basketball title Sunday,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":700412,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3724],"tags":[4794,8639,4796,7,87949,87945,87947,87946,87943,87942,87944,82163,87941,87951,87948,87950,4795],"class_list":{"0":"post-700411","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-basketball","8":"tag-anf","9":"tag-atlanta-news","10":"tag-atlanta-news-first","11":"tag-basketball","12":"tag-ben-pearce","13":"tag-d3-mens-basketball","14":"tag-d3-mens-basketball-championship","15":"tag-d3-mens-basketball-tournament","16":"tag-emory","17":"tag-emory-eagles","18":"tag-emory-eagles-basketball","19":"tag-emory-university","20":"tag-emory-university-basketball","21":"tag-ethan-fauss","22":"tag-jair-knight","23":"tag-mary-washington-university","24":"tag-wanf"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116354667185270889","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/700411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=700411"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/700411\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/700412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=700411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=700411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=700411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}