Covering UMHB Athletics and the stories behind the score
SAINT PETER, Minnesota — For much of the 2025-26 season, Mary Hardin-Baylor was the team that opponents with a halftime lead feared, as The Cru mounted numerous second-half comebacks all the way up to last Saturday’s ASC championship game win over Hardin-Simmons.
SAINT PETER, Minn. — UMHB head coach Sam Patterson calls Hudson Johnson “one of the most fearless guards” he has ever been around. On Friday night in the First Round of the NCAA Tournament, Johnson showed why.
It is NCAA Tournament time for UMHB men’s basketball, who is back in the 64-team field for the first time since the 2022-23 season. The Cru begins its run on Friday in the upper Midwest, playing at the Gustavus Adolphus Regional about 70 miles southwest of Minneapolis. It marks the first time since the 2008 tournament appearance that the Crusaders will play their first round game outside of Texas, as their previous six first round games all came in Belton.
BELTON — After punching its ticket to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2022-23 in Saturday’s ASC Tournament championship, Mary Hardin-Baylor men’s basketball learned of its first round draw—and next destination—on Monday afternoon.
ABILENE — The goal was put in place 170 days before it was achieved.
ABILENE — When two teams are meeting for the third time in five weeks, as UMHB and ETBU did in Friday’s American Southwest Conference Tournament semifinal, there is very little about either side’s gameplan that comes as a surprise for the opponent.
BELTON — Elijah Lawrence and his UMHB teammates came into Saturday’s regular season finale not knowing whether or not they would get another chance to play in front of their home crowd this season.
ABILENE, Texas — UMHB withstood—and countered—Hardin-Simmons’ first several punches on Saturday afternoon.
BELTON — The odds were stacked against UMHB plenty of times on Tuesday night.
BELTON — Before UMHB men’s basketball’s ASC home opener against ETBU, Sam Patterson talked to his team about resiliency. “Bending, not breaking,” as he put it. Little did Patterson know just how fitting that theme would be for the contest that played out inside the Mayborn Campus Center Saturday afternoon.