HIGHLIGHTS

DANVILLE, Ill. – This team doesn't quit! Macomb Men's Basketball earned a 69-67 overtime victory in comeback fashion over the host Danville Area CC Jaguars Friday (March 24) in the NJCAA Division II National Championship Final Four! Down eight at the half and trailing by as many as 11 points, the 8-seed Monarchs refused to quit and came all the way back to force overtime and eventually earn the two-point victory to book their spot in the NJCAA Division II National Championship Game Saturday (March 25) at 8:30 p.m. ET / 7:30 p.m. CT.

The Monarchs' opponent in Saturday's National Championship Game will be the seventh-seeded Stormers of Milwaukee Area Tech. In Friday's other semifinal, the 7-seed Stormers topped 6-seed Orange County, 79-76. The Stormers enter the title game 31-4 on the season and are riding a nine-game winning streak. The Monarchs are 28-7 and have a winning streak of 10 games.

Saturday will be Macomb's first trip to the national title game. The trip to the title game is the latest in a series of phenomenal accomplishments for the program under the direction of second-year head coach Hassan Nizam. Last year, Nizam led the Monarchs to the program's first MCCAA Championship and first conference crown in nearly 30 years. This season, Nizam and Co. earned the program's second Region XII Championship and will now be playing for the program's first national championship in less than 24 hours.

On Friday, the Monarchs went into hostile territory and played the host Jaguars in front of a capacity crowd of just over 2,000 people. The Monarchs countered with a respectable crowd of their own as scores made the trip from Michigan to support the Blue & White.

Battling against their opponent and a raucous crowd, the Monarchs fell behind by as many as 11 in the first half and were down by eight at the break, 39-31. Trailing by double digits for the second consecutive game at the national tournament, the Monarchs refused to back down once again and started the second half on a 17-3 run to take a 48-42 lead with 14:22 left on the second half clock.

The Jaguars clawed back and went on a 12-2 run of their own to take a four-point (54-50) lead with just over eight minutes remaining. Much like Wednesday's Elite 8 upending of the tournament's top seed, the Monarchs made championship plays down the stretch and their defense held for one final stop as the game went to overtime with the score tied, 62-62.

In the overtime period, the Jaguars seemingly captured all the momentum after scoring the first five points of the extra stanza to take a 67-62 lead with 2:53 remaining. The nation's top ranked defense took over from there and held the Jaguars scoreless over the final 2:53 to earn the two-point victory.

Juwan Maxey (Detroit, Mich./Renaissance) made a huge 3-pointer with 2:39 remaining and Aidan Rubio (Flint, Mich./Goodrich/DME Academy) scored the final four points of the contest, including an and-one with 14.8 seconds left that turned a one-point deficit into the two-point lead and final score of 69-67.

Rubio tallied 16 points (6-of-13) and grabbed a team-high nine rebounds while Tamario Adley (Detroit, Mich./De La Salle) led the Monarchs with 17 points on 7-of-14 shooting. Maxey followed in double figures with 13 points on 4-of-6 shooting from the floor and a perfect 4-of-4 effort at the charity stripe. Jaylen Daughtery (Oak Park, Mich./Ferndale) and Tymias Williams (Macomb, Mich./Dakota) recorded eight points each, while Cameron McEvans (Southfield, Mich./Southfield A&T) chimed in with seven points, including a huge first half three that cut the Monarchs deficit to single digits at the break.

Daughtery and Williams grabbed five rebounds each and played huge roles defensively to help lift the Monarchs into Saturday's National Championship Game.

The National Championship Game will be streamed live on the NJCAA Network at njcaa.org/network.