Salt Lake Community College men’s basketball coach Kyle Taylor said in the run-up to the NJCAA National Tournament that neither he nor his players had ever won a game at the 24-team event.
Taylor and the Bruins picked up three wins in four days to reach Saturday evening’s championship game, but they didn’t have enough left to get a fourth win.
Opponents spent the week at Hutchinson Sports Arena in Kansas slowing down top-seeded SLCC, the nation’s No. 1 scoring offense, but the Northwest Florida State defense brought the Bruins to a halt. SLCC went without a field goal over the first 4:45 of the game and found few, if any clean looks inside the 3-point line in falling to the 10th-seeded Raiders, 83-67.
SLCC (35-2), the No. 1 ranked Division I junior college team in the country since the release of the preseason poll on Oct. 18, was bidding for its third national title since 2009 and its first since it won it 2016 as the No. 13 seed. A No. 1 seed has not won the national championship since 2012.
Doctor Bradley’s short jumper from about 12 feet gave SLCC its first field goal at the 15:15 mark of the first half. At that point, things were already trending downward as Northwest Florida State had the momentum. It wasn’t letting SLCC run, it wasn’t letting the Bruins get to the rim, it was forcing them to settle from the perimeter of seemingly every possession.
The result of all of that fine early play was an eventual blitz. Already up 10 at 21-11, the Raiders (31-5) ripped off a 20-4 run to close the first half and take a 41-15 lead into the locker room. Those points came on a variety of second-chance putbacks, fast breaks off turnovers, and clean looks from the perimeter.
Northwest Florida State stretched the second-half lead to as many as 24 in claiming its third-ever national championship and first since 2015.
