Champion Christian Colleges Men's Basketball were able to win their first ever NCCAA Southwest Regional Championship, hosted in Hot Springs, AR for the first time ever. The Tigers, who were seeded 5th, defeated 4th ranked Southwestern Adventist 74-67, 1st seed Arlington Baptist 91-89, and 7th seed Ozark Christian College 87-77 in overtime to make history winning their first ever NCCAA tournament. The Tigers will be moving on to the National Tournament in Minneapolis, Minnesota starting March 13th, 2025.

The Tigers season was best defined by their two mottos: Resilience and #OneMore. The latter, #OneMore, was chosen after much thought by Head Coach Mo Capaci as the motto for the season. The thought behind it was to always strive to go above and beyond and to push your limits. The former, Resilience, came organically throughout the season. The Tigers mindset was always "bend, but don't break," dealing with a multitude of injuries and sickness as well as family tragedies throughout the season. The Tigers were not able to play a game with their full roster until midway through January, with Senior Zavion Jackson breaking a finger, Senior KJ Younge severely spraining his ankle, and Junior Christian Blair Spraining his LCL and MCL in his knee.

Throughout a long season, these kind of things can happen. Injuries are common place in contact sports, and you have to do whatever you can to weather the storm. The Tigers found a way throughout most of the 1st semester and into the second, starting the year 10-1 vs NCCAA opponents and were ranked #2 in the country, sitting with 5 top 10 wins. After getting National recognition, Champion hit a wall. The Tigers would hit the road for 6 straight away games, and ended up finishing the year going 2-9 in their last 11 regular season games, losing 6 in a row on the road. In that stretch, 2nd leading scorer Christian Blair would injure his knee. The season seemed to be falling apart for the Tigers, even falling out of the top 10 rankings.

The Tigers had two options going into the Regional Tournament: Give up on the season, or be resilient. It would have been understood if the Tigers ended the year disappointed, losing their 2nd leading scorer and facing an uphill battle, but the boys didn't quit. They decided to continue playing with the motto #OneMore in mind, knowing this was a win or go home scenario. In the second Regional Tournament game, Senior Noah Brooks went down with cracked ribs. But time and time again the Champion Christian found a way, bending but never breaking, as Junior Chad Milne and Senior Josh Walpole played great games to help carry the load missing key rotation players. 

The opponents Champion defeated on the way to their Championship made the win even sweeter, as Arlington Baptist defeated Champion in last years Regional Tournament on a buzzer beater 3, and Ozark Christian defeated Champion at the 2023 Regional Tournament on a full court buzzer beater 3 as well. 

Some Notable Performances from this weekends tournament:

 KJ Younge - 21 points, 6 rebounds, 5 steals vs SWAU

Adrian Brown - 24 points, 6 rebounds, 2 assists vs ABU

EJ Anderson - 20 points, 5 rebounds, 5 assists vs ABU

Damian Bohlman - 17 points, 6 rebounds, 5 steals vs OCC

KJ Younge - 16 points, 6 rebounds, 4 assists vs OCC

Each game had a different leading scorer, a testament to the unselfishness and talent of the full Tiger roster. 

Champion Christian never gave up. This team has had one goal since coming on campus, and that was to give it One More. One more sprint, one more rep, one more pass, one more defensive stop. In Regionals, it was always One More game. With the regular season finally concluded, and the National Championship next in line, there's only One More thing left to do.