Barton Cougars win first NJCAA DI basketball national championship

HUTCHINSON, Kan. (KSNW) – Way back on November 29 of last year, the Cowley Tigers traveled to Barton Community College and beat the Cougars on their home court, 80-70.

It was Barton’s first and only loss of the 2023-24 season.

The Cougars ran off 27 consecutive wins, the last four over a span of six days at the NJCAA Division I Basketball Championship at the Hutchinson Sports Arena.

The final victory came in the final game of the junior college season. The top-seeded and number-one ranked Cougars held off seventh-seeded Triton College 88-73 to capture the program’s first basketball national championship. It was Barton’s second appearance in a championship game. The first was 25 years ago when the Cougars lost to Indians Hills in the title game.

“It’s just unbelievable. It’s an unbelievable feeling, and it’s just the hard work paid off. You try to get kids to buy in to do things and work hard, and for them to be able to win this and pull off the championship. I mean, it just shows that the hard work does pay off,” said third year Head Coach Jeremy Coombs.

“Man, it just feels really good man. All the fans. All the support. We have all the family, friends. All the brothers or sisters. Even the little kids, man, that we go to the elementary school and hang out with them. They even came here, so it’s bigger than us. And we love to do what we do for this reason,” said sophomore guard Cooper Jackson.

In a championship that featured six ties and three lead changes in front a a nearly full house, the Trojans went on an early 7-0 run to take a 17-11 lead. Barton responded with a 12-4 run. Fueled by a pair of three-pointers by Ring Malith, the Cougars regained the lead at 23-21 and never trailed again for the rest of the game.

Later in the first half, Myles Thompson scored six points during a 9-0 Barton run, and the Cougars’ lead was 39-30.

At the half, Barton was on top, 46-39.

Jones, who was regulated to playing only 21 minutes and 40 seconds due to early foul trouble, drilled a three-pointer at 17:23 of the second half to stretch the Barton lead to double-digits at 53-43. Moments later, Jackson came up with a steal, raced down the court, threw the ball off the glass, and Jones leaped to grab it and jammed it home, bringing Cougars fans to their feet.

Triton called a timeout with Barton on top 55-43.

Barton played most of the second half with a double-digit advantage, but the Trojans fought back to make it a 5-point game at 78-73 with under four minutes remaining. However, Triton never scored again, and Barton ended up winning by a 15-point margin.

The NJCAA DI Championship trophy was handed to Coach Coombs, who then passed it on to the team as Barton blue confetti shot from cannons into the air.

“I feel like I’m blessed. Words can’t explain how happy I am right now. Just for me and my community, my teammates, everybody who’s been here throughout the year. So, I’m just blessed to be here,” said sophomore guard Mozae Downing-Rivers.

Jones, who scored 66 points during the four games in the tournament, including a 25-point effort in the semifinals, finished with 14. He was named the tournament’s Most Valuable Player.

“It will probably just soak in later, but I feel happy about everything. To my teammates, to the community. It’s just amazing to make history,” said Jones.

Malith finished with 22 points, and Thompson, a Hutch native, notched a double-double with a game-high 27 points and 13 rebounds. Both were named to the All-Tournament team.

Coombs, who stresses family within his program, was asked what he’s most proud of about this team.

“You know, the fact that they were able to stick together, and in junior college and in basketball in general, to get kids to buy into a system and not worry about just scoring the basketball, it’s really hard to do,” said Coombs. “They weren’t worried about the MVPs or the first-team all-conference, things like that. They just wanted to win, and if they could do that, they felt good about what they were doing. And so, the fact that they bought in and stayed together, I’m just super proud about that.”

Jackson has been talking about winning “the natty” all season, so he was confident the Cougars would get it done Saturday.

“I don’t want to sound cocky when I say this, but I trust everything our coaching staff has done. I trust our players, my teammates, everybody was locked. Dialed in,” he said. “Coaches are out till 4am. They’re scouting. So, man I knew we had this from the moment we stepped on the court.”

Barton Athletics Director Trevor Rolfs played basketball for the Cougars in the early 1990s, but his teams never made it to the national tournament. He knows how difficult it is to get here.

“It’s hard. I talked about that all the time, how hard it is to get here, but also how hard it is to win the thing. It’s a culmination of a lot of things. And I think everybody saw this week how deep our team is. I think our depth was really important,” said Rolfs. “We’ve got a lot of star players all across the board, but our depth has been incredible all year long. So really, from the last guy on the bench, to certainly LaJae Jones’ MVP performance this week, just a great group of players to bring this thing home. It’s very satisfying. And again, I just couldn’t be more proud of the kids.”

This is Barton County’s 60th athletics national championship. 58 of those belong to the track & field and cross country teams.

Now, one finally belongs to the basketball program.