ATLANTA, Ga. – The 2025-26 men's basketball season has been one of, literally, rewriting The W's program history. On Friday (March 6/6:15 p.m. CT), the Owls will scribe the next entry in that record book, when they travel to Emory University for a first-round NCAA Division III national championship game.
 
"I thought that we were ready to take that next step and challenge ourselves a little bit," The W Head Coach Dean Burrows said. "It's a part of the process in growing and building a program. We're still in that growing process. We're getting ready to play Emory, who are obviously one hell of a club and who we have a lot of respect for. But we're at two different stages of our lives as a program. We're in our eighth year, overall, in existence, and third year as an NCAA school."
 
It will be MUW's first-ever national post-season appearance since becoming full NCAA III members in 2023-24. The Owls (17-10) earned the right to face the Eagles (22-3) by winning the St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SLIAC) tournament title last Saturday afternoon over league top-seed Webster University on its own floor and, thus, receiving the automatic qualifier berth to the NCAAs.
 
Of course, the somewhat cruel irony of that fact of winning the SLIAC bid, was that the Owls had less than 48 hours to celebrate the first-ever conference crown in their history (with the first eight hours of that time spent just getting back to Columbus from the St. Louis area). By Monday afternoon, Burrows and his players had to turn the page in preparation for a strong Emory squad four days later and on the road.
 
Burrows' Owls have been akin to the Rocky Balboa of NCAA III men's basketball this season in several respects. Not the least of the underdog scenarios for MUW is that it has just a nine-player roster. As Burrows joked when his team faced Webster in the SLIAC finals, "they have seven coaches; we have nine players."
 
But, much like the comparison to the fictional Rocky character, don't count The W out by numbers, alone. There is no barometer to measure a team's heart, especially when it comes to the Owls, who are riding a seven-game win streak heading into the NCAA III tourney.
 
"We knew we had the talent," Burrows explains of his roster that shrunk from 15 during the summer for various reason. "We knew we had six guys who could start for us on any given night and who we could ride with. But you've got to have the right guys. I give our kids a lot of credit, I don't think many guys today can do what (the MUW players) are doing; A lot of that is because of our senior leadership of Trent Walker and Jackson Reid. It's just a part of who we are."
 
And to take the boxer analogy a step further, MUW's mindset heading to Emory is reminiscent of Rocky's soliloquy to Adrian (in Rocky IV) about the near-impossible task of taking on Soviet super-fighter Ivan Drago: "to beat me he's gonna have to kill me, and to kill me he's gotta have the guts to stand in front of me, and to do that he's gotta be willing to die himself"  OK, that may be a tad melodramatic for a basketball game, but you get the idea. The W team, despite long odds all season, has been willing to step into every battle and challenge put before them, with no apologies or excuses, and plans to do the same Friday, come what may.
 
In Drago-esque fashion, Emory comes into the match-up versus The W, as the No.-2 seed for the entire 64-team field (conversely, the Owls are the 61st-seeded team), also on a seven-game win skein. EU is the champions of the University Athletic Association (UAA). The Eagles are making their 13th appearance in the NCAA III tournament out of the past 14 seasons. Emory leads the nation in assist-to-turnover ratio.
 
"They're big, they're physical, they share the heck out of the ball," Burrows said in assessing Emory. "They play the game the right way, in my opinion. They're deliberate in everything that they do. We've got the utmost respect for them. We've got our work cut out for us.
 
"But like I told our guys, as good as (the Eagles) are, there are some things that we do really well too, that they have to come out and take care of against us. We've been doing this all year, overcoming adversity, individually and collectively. This is a part of our story," Burrows reminded.
 
One of those things the Owls do well, collectively, is shoot the ball. MUW sits atop the NCAA III statistics with the nation's best team field goal percentage, at 52.5 percent. The W also commits the third-fewest fouls per game on average (12.6), in the country.
 
Burrows is expected to deploy his usual starting five of seniors Reid (5.7 ppg/2.4 rpg) and Walker (9.5 ppg/6.5 rpg), junior Tyler Shephard (14.7 ppg/4.7 rpg), and the sophomore tandem of Tray Huguley (23.0 ppg/11.7 rpg) and Joe Haze Austin (13.7 ppg/5.4 rpg). Junior Devin McCaine (14.2 ppg/2.4 rpg) has started 19 games this year, but has been the team's sixth man, of late. Freshmen Mal Stansfield and Tyler Bohannon, along with sophomore transfer Ayden McDeavitt, all provide capable minutes for Burrows when called upon.
 
One thing is for certain, 2025-26 is a year to remember in The W men's basketball.  "These (MUW players) have one heck of a story´ Burrows reflected. "And I'm glad to be a part of it and help them author it."
 
 
 
 
 
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