ATLANTA – With the game already out of hand and the Owls out of precious time, forward Joe Haze Austin took the ball and charged into the paint, only to be battered around by Emory University’s taller defenders. He weathered the physicality like it was moments after tipoff and banked in a layup with his left hand.
Two more times in the final 1:30, the unrelenting Austin capped off MUW’s possessions with gritty, contested layups. Then, with a game-high 32 points and six steals under his belt, all he and his fellow sweat-drenched Owls could do was watch as Emory celebrated the opportunity to keep dancing.
A 50-37 first-half deficit proved to be too much to come back from, and the magical season for MUW’s men’s basketball team came to a close on Friday in the first round of the NCAA Division III basketball tournament in an 87-73 defeat to the homestanding Eagles.
“Credit to (Emory),” head coach Dean Burrows said. “Congratulations to them, but I think our team deserves a whole lot of credit for fighting all year and overcoming adversity. They’re going to face hard (moments) for the rest of their lives and I think they’re going to be able to look at this moment and grow from it. In the first half I thought we settled in faster than I thought coming in to be honest with you. We talk about layups and free throws and I think maybe some of those things being rushed at times, but what we had – I’m proud of these kids.”
On paper, the Owls (17-11) were at a height disadvantage and only had nine bodies to put in uniform for the game – and for most of the season – but they were hot on the Eagles’ heels early. Both sides traded baskets for the majority of the first half, but Emory (23-3) found what became game-winning separation in the final four minutes by way of a 14-6 run to close out the first frame. In the second half, Emory constantly rotated fresh bodies in and managed to slightly outpace the dogged Owls 37-36, dominating the rebounding battle 64-40 for 33 second-chance points.
The No. 2 seeded Eagles move on to play Roanoke College on Saturday in the second round.
Despite the odds, the Owls put up a fight they deemed worthy enough to prove their mettle in the program’s first-ever tournament bid just a week after capturing the first SLIAC title in school history. Tray Huguley scored 15 points with 12 rebounds, and Trent Walker added 10 points and eight rebounds. The game didn’t end how MUW wanted it to, but the Owls walked off the court with their heads held high.
“As you see the (personnel) numbers are low and it’s not just us players, it starts with the coaches,” said Austin, who played the entire 40 minutes. “We can’t even have 5-on-5 in practice with our full team. Two assistant coaches, three assistant coaches have to hop in on defense just to let us get an in-game look. It starts as a program and we’re bought in and it shows a lot.”
“We all bought in, we all had heart and we all fought to the end as you see,” Walker chimed in. “(We’re) just really grateful to be in this position today, to be honest.”
After beginning the season picked as a middle-of-the-pack team in the SLIAC, seeing multiple players depart during the season and shocking the conference by winning the league title to advance to the Division III tournament – it’s been a memorable season for MUW. One the team struggled to put into words.
“It’s a dream,” said Walker, a senior. “We went through a lot. From the beginning of the year to having 15 players to now being cut down to only have nine. Going on win streaks, going on losing streaks; we had players meetings – and it was just a journey. We all had to figure each other out and be bought into what coach (Burrows) was telling us. And we won the SLIAC championship, that was big, and we wanted to make some noise out here, too, to get our names out there. I’ll call it a journey because we all fought to get here.”
Conference championships and NCAA Tournament appearances are no longer myths at MUW, but dreams that can be realized.
“Going forward after us, they’ll know the standard,” Walker said. “They’ll know that we made it here and that (MUW) is a little school from Mississippi. We have an awkward name pertaining to men’s basketball – it has ‘women’ in our name – but they’ll know the standard. They’ll know that we play with heart. We’re not the biggest team, we’re not the fastest team, but we are going to fight until the end. We are going to fight all 40 minutes to make sure that everybody knows, even in the stands, that we left this gym playing hard.”
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