NCAA Tournament Bound! UMHB Men’s Basketball storms back to win ASC Championship over Hardin-Simmons

Photo courtesy of Hardin-Simmons Athletics

ABILENE — The goal was put in place 170 days before it was achieved. 

On August 11, the UMHB men’s basketball team met for its first meeting of the 2025-26 season. It was then, led by a first-year head coach in Sam Patterson, and with a mix of newcomers and returners on the roster, that the Crusaders laid out their mission for the season ahead. 

They viewed it in four parts, each of which had to be accomplished for them to achieve the success they were after, culminating with an ASC Tournament title. They had 170 days to get there. 

On Saturday night, after weathering a brutal non-conference schedule, going 5-1 in a fast and furious ASC slate, and knocking off ETBU in a tournament semifinal, UMHB arrived. One game to keep their season alive. One game to send the program to its first NCAA Tournament since 2023. One game to fulfill the mission they set out on after that late summer meeting. 

“At this time of the year, you want desperate players, just not wanting the season to end,” Patterson would say afterwards. “And that’s what you have in this group.”

After trailing by as many as 17 points in the first half, UMHB outscored longtime rival Hardin-Simmons by 20 in the second half, digging deep in yet another brilliant final 20 minutes to add another chapter to this season’s story. Playing on HSU’s home court, The Cru surged down the stretch, winning the 2026 ASC Tournament in a 90-81 victory to clinch a bid in next week’s NCAA Tournament. It marks the fourth ASC Tournament title in program history. 

“We said the mission for this team is we’ve got to win four different parts of our season, and we felt like we accomplished the first three parts,” senior wing Zach Engels said. “We knew this fourth part, the conference tournament, was going to be a battle. We went down 17 but we never wavered. Even with it being Coach Patt’s first year, there’s a core group of guys here that have played with each other for a while. We’ve all had that belief. We know how to play with each other. I’m just super thrilled that it ended up turning out this way this time.”

The Cru cut down the nets inside the Mabee Complex admist the backdrop of the still-lit scoreboard displaying the final score, smiles all around as the realization of the moment sunk in.  All season long, after wins and losses alike, Patterson made it clear he wanted his team playing at its peak in late February, building towards a performance to remember—and a championship—in the conference tournament. 

The Cru delivered exactly that on Saturday night. 

Paced by 23 points from tournament MVP Donta Coady and 23 more from Engels, UMHB avenged its Feb. 14 loss to the Cowbys in Abilene in the most decisive duel of the season. The Crusaders—several of whom saw action in last season’s ASC final against HSU—understood the magnitude of the moment, and once the lead flipped in The Cru’s favor, they refused to let it go. 

“We just feed off each other,” Coady said. “So when the ball’s got energy, we have so many weapons, it’s hard to stop us.” 

Coady pulled UMHB within two at the 15:59 mark of the second half, scoring on a putback one possession after agile senior guard Hudson Johnson got a layup to fall. HSU pulled away momentarily with a 4-0 run, but Engels answered, swishing home a 3 from the left wing only a few steps in front of the UMHB bench. 

The momentum shifted, and The Cru capitalized. Coming out of a timeout, Coady knocked down one of his four 3s on the evening, cutting the HSU lead to 56-54 off an assist from Elijah Lawrence. The next trip to the offensive end, produced by a steal from Engels, gave Lawrence an open 3-point shot of his own, and the senior point guard connected for UMHB’s first lead of the game. 

“We’ve had the saying all year: Let It Fly,” Engels, who played 39 minutes in the win, said afterwards. “[Coach] has confidence in all of us to go out there, and he knows what we’re capable of doing. Having somebody on the bench who encourages you, even when things aren’t going great like they were in the first half, is why I feel like we’re such a special second half team. You never get too high or too low. We’re pretty even-keeled.”

The Cru shot 7-of-13 from beyond the arc in the second half and 52.8 percent from the field in that same stretch, hitting consistent shots when HSU threatened the lead down the stretch. When Matthew Alexander pulled the Cowboys within one at the 5:07 mark, Engels answered with a driving layup on the very next possession. When Silas Davis knotted the score at 73 apiece on a layup and free throw, Coady wasted no time converting on a jumper on the other end. And with 3:44 to go, Tyler Williams again tied the score HSU, only for Coady to again respond, this time with a clutch 3 from the left wing. 

A native of Arlington, Texas, Coady hit four 3s for the second time in his last three games while setting a career-high in the scoring column, coming up with several of UMHB’s most impactful shots in the second half.

“I’m just playing off my teammates,” Coady said postgame of his clutch shooting in the final five minutes. “We’ve got a lot of guys [who can score], and it’s hard to stop us. So when the ball finds me, and I’m open, I just let it go.” 

The pivotal sequence came less than a minute after Coady’s go-ahead 3, with the intensity building and HSU’s student section on its feet. With 2:24 left and UMHB holding firm to a 78-77 lead, Williams found an open path to the rim along the baseline, needing only a layup to give HSU the advantage. Instead, he soared to the basket for a dunk attempt that went awry, as he slammed the ball off the rim and it ricocheted out-of-bounds. 

The Cru seized the opportunity with the home crowd quiet, as Engels’ right-handed floater fell through the net on the ensuing possession, pushing UMHB’s lead to three. The momentum shifted heavily towards the visitors from Belton, who then forced HSU’s Jamar Ingram into a costly turnover. Johnson made the Cowboys pay, as he caught a pass from Lawrence at the top of the arc and drove straight at the rim, acrobatically scoring on a layup that pushed the lead to two possessions with just 1:31 left. 

Even in a game where UMHB’s leading 3-point shooter was 0-for-5 from long-range, Johnson stepped up in the second half comeback, finishing with 12 points, five assists, and driving hard to the basket through contact on multiple possessions. 

“I was frustrated for parts of the game, but Coach Patt told me to keep attacking,” said Johnson, who returned to UMHB for his senior season, eager to be part of Patterson’s first squad in Belton. “So I just kept attacking. I was glad I could make that one [late in the game].”

He also answered the call at the free throw line, converting on three free throws in a 14-second stretch with less than 80 seconds left. The Cru made eight of its nine free throw attempts in the last 1:13, shutting the door on HSU’s attempt at a late rally. 

“We knew going down the stretch that it was going to be about taking care of the ball and making free throws,” Patterson noted. “I thought defensively we did really well in that second half, getting stops and forcing turnovers. [HSU] had an uncharacteristically high turnover game today, and our guys did a good job of understanding personnel.”

The Cowboys turned it over 13 times, with eight coinciding with UMHB’s stellar second half. The Crusaders went to the locker room at halftime having scored just one point off HSU’s five turnovers, but they scored 12 off the Cowboys’ final eight, pairing defensive aggression with reliable shot-making, a perfect combination in the 57-point second period. 

“When you’re playing a team for the third time, you’re really familiar with each other,” Patterson added. “So it comes down to, how good are you in the details? I thought our guys at the end of the game just made winning plays.” 

The scenes in the closing moments—UMHB calmly making free throws, the Crusader bench racing onto the court to celebrate after the final buzzer, Engels hoisting the championship trophy high—could not have been more different than those of the game’s opening moments. 

Three seconds in, HSU’s Matthew Alexander raced into the frontcourt, and grabbed the ball after 6-foot-8 center Chris Bryant tipped the ball ahead, and finished with a layup. Alexander had HSU’s first six points and Asher Fleming had the next four, pacing a 10-2 run for the hosts, who soon led 20-7 after Myles Amason’s three-point play. 

Very little went right for The Cru in a stretch that saw them make just two of their first 15 shots and break down defensively on a handful of possessions. Alexander, who had 24 points, pushed the lead out to 27-10 with 8:13 left in the half, a massive advantage for a team already playing on its home court. 

UMHB responded with urgency, but without panic, focused on whittling the deficit to single-digits by halftime. Well aware of their second-half capability, the Crusaders knew they only needed to be within striking distance to have a chance in the second 20 minutes. Lawrence and Coady each hit 3s after UMHB went down by 17, and Daniel Hutson cut the deficit to eight on his layup with 2:27 left. A late 3 from Lawrence—UMHB’s leading scorer at the half with 12 points—made it an 11-point game at the break, 44-33. 

“Hardin-Simmons came out and really used the crowd to their advantage early,” Patterson noted. “That place got loud. I thought we got good looks early, they just weren’t falling. We got behind in the first half, but that’s kind of how our season has gone. 

“We’re a really elite second half team, and it’s definitely nothing I’m doing in the locker room. It all has to do with these guys here, just buckling down. We know the game is a game of runs. It’s what we’ve said from Day 1. You can’t get too high when you’re in a run of your own, and you can’t get too low when the other team is going on a run. That was really evident today, just withstanding their punches in the first half.”

27 games into the season, this squad has experienced more than a few memorable second-half surges. There was the 17-point comeback to beat Whitworth on the road in early December. The high-scoring win over then-No. 11 Redlands after trailing by 12 in Las Vegas. The first win over HSU in Belton with a 12-point second-half rally stands out as well. But none match Saturday’s comeback, where with the season on the line and the goal of an ASC Tournament championship at stake, UMHB leaned on its experience and pulled through when it mattered most.

“We talked about it before the game that you don’t rise to the occasion, you fall back on your experiences and your habits,” Patterson said. “Our experiences throughout this season have prepared us for this moment today. Even being down 17, we’ve had experiences that we could fall back on. It’s hard to rally guys when they haven’t done something that you want them to do. But when they’ve done it before, now they start to believe that they are capable and there’s not a lead we can’t come back from. 

“I do believe the positive energy that we bring and the environment that we create allows us to be in games that a lot of teams would throw in the towel on. It’s a testament to these players and their will and desperation to win.”

UMHB’s NCAA Tournament destination will be announced during Monday’s 12 p.m. CT NCAA selection show, with The Cru going dancing for the first time since its Sweet 16 run in 2022-23. Mock bracket projections from D3hoops.com’s Ryan Scott and D3Datacast’s Matt Snyder have The Cru playing in a pod hosted by St. Thomas (TX) in Houston, with Trinity (TX) as UMHB’s first-round opponent. 

“These past two games were win or go home, and it’s the same thing now,” Johnson said. “We’re going to go in with the mentality that we’re going to play as hard as we can, rebound the ball, and hopefully come out with a win.” 

UMHB Stat Leaders

Points: Donta Coady (23), Zach Engels (23), Elijah Lawrence (15)

Rebounds: Grant Jessen (12), Zach Engels (7), Donta Coady (6)

Assists: Hudson Johnson (5), Elijah Lawrence (3), Zach Engels (3), Grant Jessen (3)

Steals: Zach Engels (3), Elijah Lawrence (2)