Hoops teams from Oklahoma, Tennessee advance to Tuesday’s NAIA championship game

Langston University of Oklahoma is on the verge of authoring one of the greatest comeback stories in college basketball history … if it hasn’t done so already.

The Lions, who won one game in the two seasons before Chris Wright was hired as head coach in 2022, defeated defending champion College of Idaho 58-52 on Monday night in the semifinals of the 86th NAIA Men’s Basketball Tournament at Municipal Auditorium.

Langston will play another pride of Lions, Freed-Hardman (Tenn.), for the championship at 7 Tuesday night.

Freed-Hardeman defeated No. 1 overall seed Grace (Indiana) College 86-81 in Monday’s first semifinal.

Langston had gone 1-27 and 0-10 (a COVID year) before hiring Wright, after he had taken Talladega (Ala.) to the NAIA championship game in 2022. The Lions went 31-3 last season, losing to Georgetown (Ky.) in the Round of 16 at Municipal.

The Lions will take a 35-1 mark into the title game: Jay Allen-Tovar broke a tie at 52 with 28 seconds remaining, and College of Idaho (32-3) was unable to get back into the game.

“We win a lot of games on the court,” said Wright, 66-4 in his two seasons at Langston, “but we also win a lot of games off the court. All of our seniors graduated last year, and all of our seniors are on pace to graduate. When you have really good seniors, you have a bunch of guys who care about each other, special things happen.”

College of Idaho, which returned four starters and five bench players from last year, was bidding to become the first repeat NAIA champion since Oklahoma City in 2007 and 2008.

“This is my 11th year of being a college basketball head coach, and that was the toughest team I’ve ever played against,” said Wright “The way they guard is so unique ... for us to win a game off our toughness and our defense speaks volume to the character of the guys we have.”

Forward Cortez Mosley, who spent most of the second half in foul trouble, led the Lions with 14 points, and guard DeMonte Brown, who keyed a 10-0 run in the second half that gave the Lions a 48-43 lead, had 12, including two-for-two accuracy on 3-pointers.

It was fitting that Allen-Tovar would score the game-winning basket.

“Jay has been huge for us all year,” Wright said. “He was a transfer from the University of New Mexico … he was 8 (points) and 6 (rebounds) at New Mexico, and when we got him at the end of the summer, I knew that was the missing piece of what we didn’t have.”

Freed-Hardman 86, Grace 81

The Freed-Hardeman (Tenn.) Lions took the floor for warmups Monday sporting black T-shirts emblazoned with a bright red heart between the abbreviations FHU and KC.

And why wouldn’t the Lions love Kansas City? Freed-Hardeman, which included forward Devin Tomlinson of Blue Springs South in its starting lineup, will bask in Kansas City for another final night after upsetting Grace (34-2).

By defeating Grace, the Lions avenged an 86-67 loss to the Lancers in the Round of 16 at last year’s tournament and reached the first title game in school history.

“Grace is an unbelievable team,’ Freed-Hardeman coach Drew Stutts said after the Lions’ 11th straight win. “Let’s give them credit. They were the best team in this tournament, but the best team in the tournament doesn’t always win.

“It’s something we talked about all week was toughness. We’ve got shirts that have ‘Tough’ on them. We talked this week, ‘The tougher team wins. There were some big haymakers thrown by both teams. But we were the team left standing.”

Freed-Hardeman (31-4) showed its toughness at both ends of the floor. The Lions defense forced 19 Grace turnovers, including 14 steals, and scored 24 points off those turnovers. Guard JJ Wheat made five steals and led Freed Hardman with 20 points, going six-for-six from the free-throw line in the final 35 seconds.

The game was tied at 64 with less 7 minutes left when the Lions took command with a 10-0 run, triggered by two deep 3-pointers by Peyton Law.

Law, who has been struggling with his deep shot, made all three of his 3-point attempts in the game; and Sam Powell, who has been sizzling in Kansas City, hit four of six from behind the arc, making him 14 of 21 in three games at Municipal.

Tomlinson, who averages 6.1 points and 3.4 rebounds, made the game’s first basket for his only two points and played just eight minutes.

“The thing is with our team, is we have 10 guys who can play,” Stutt said. “There are certain matchups in certain games that guys are going to play a lot more or a lot less.

“Who knows, depending on what the matchup is (Tuesday), he may play 20-plus minutes. But we have a lot of confidence in all those guys. Some nights it’s your night, and another night, you’ve got to be a great teammate, and he’s been that all year.”