How Sweet It Is! CMS Men's Basketball Advances to Round of 16 for First Time

THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. - Senior guard Josh Angle had 21 points, and the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps men's basketball survived two late game-winning three-point attempts from Whitworth to earn a 69-67 win in the regional final hosted by Cal Lutheran and advance to the Round of 16 for the first time in program history.

CMS improves to 22-6 with the win and will advance to meet No. 18 Nebraska Wesleyan next weekend, in a sectional that will be hosted by No. 1 Hampden-Sydney. It marks the first time that the Stags have ever advanced out of their regional. CMS came in to this season with six NCAA Tournament wins in six different seasons, but had never advanced. 

The last two times that CMS went to the NCAA Tournament, in back-to back seasons in 2017 and 2018, it defeated Whitworth in its opener and then fell to Whitman in the regional final. This time around, the Stags met Whitworth in the second round and was able to hang on for a dramatic win. 

CMS led by five after Will King hit two foul shots with 1:38 to go to make it a 69-64 game. Sullivan Menard then made three foul shots to close it to two, and the Pirates earned two stops with the chance to tie or take the lead. Whitworth turned it over by stepping on the sideline after the first one, but had two looks at three-pointers in the final 10 seconds for the win. The second came back out near the free throw line and Matt Meredith pulled it in to secure the two-point victory and a trip to Virginia for sectionals. 

Menard hit a three-pointer to give Whitworth its last lead at 60-59 with 5:05 to play, before Angle made two foul shots on the ensuing CMS possession. Reid Jones came up with a block on the other end to keep the Stags in front, and King hit two foul shots, before Menard hit another three-pointer to knot the score up at 63-63. Angle again knocked down two foul shots for CMS with 2:53 left, and Meredith scored underneath off a feed from King with 2:10 to go to put CMS ahead by four. 

The Stags fell behind 11-4 early, but surged in front and led by as many as five at 29-24 after a Reid Jones jump shot with 6:50 left in the half. Rhett Carter led a CMS surge to start the second half with six straight points to give the Stags their largest lead at 45-37 with 14:36 to go, but the Pirates got back even at 46-46, and it was back-and-forth the rest of the way down the stretch. 

King finished with 15 big points for CMS, shooting 5-6 from the floor and 5-5 from the free throw line. Will Householter added 11 points and shot 4-4 from the line, improving to 64-68 on the year (94.1 percent), including 28-30 in the postseason. Carter also had 11 points, and now has 999 in his career, with a chance to reach the 1000 mark in the deepest postseason game in CMS history. 

CMS will meet Nebraska Wesleyan at 4 p.m. local time in Virginia (1 p.m. Pacific) looking to keep its postseason run going. The Stags actually played Nebraska Wesleyan in its first-ever NCAA Division III Tournament game in 1984, falling 62-47 before beating Luther in the third-place game. Nebraska Wesleyan went on to win the national title that year.