KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Rocky Mountain College men’s basketball team reached the quarterfinals of the NAIA national basketball tournament in dramatic fashion by taking down Frontier Conference foe Bellevue University 78-73 in overtime on Friday night at Municipal Auditorium.
The Battlin’ Bears (31-3) received 24 points and seven rebounds from Royce Robinson, 19 points and 10 rebounds from Carter McCoy, and 16 points from Omari Nesbit in extending their program-record winning streak to 21 games under first-year head coach Danny Neville, who now faces Langston University, the program with which he was the associate head coach during the 2024-25 season.
Rocky scored 10 consecutive points in overtime to take control of a game in which the Bears led by 11 points in the second half only to see it dissipate. What had been a one-sided second half in favor of the Bears became a shootout at the end of regulation, as the teams traded the lead five times over the final 4:38 until Robinson’s layup with two seconds left sent the game to overtime.
Bellevue’s Jaden Phillips got the overtime scoring started with a 3-pointer for a 66-63 Bruins’ lead, but Rocky responded with its 10-0 run, punctuated by a dunk-and-one by McCoy with 1:38 left. Bellevue once again got within three points, but the Bears hung on.
Jermaine Halliburton led Bellevue (24-8) with 21 points.
Langston (27-7) defeated the quadrant's top seed Oklahoma Wesleyan 56-55 in the Round of 16 game prior to Rocky’s victory, and Saturday’s quarterfinal between the Lions, the fourth seed, and No. 2 Rocky is scheduled to start at 6:30 p.m.
Rocky last advanced this far in the tournament in 2009, the year it won the national title.
It was the third time this season that the Bears have beaten Bellevue. The previous two wins were Frontier Conference games, and the margins of victory were three points and four points.
Bellevue has played its last handful of games without leading scorer Ahmad Bynum, who is no longer with the team. Still, the 14th-seeded Bruins managed to record first- and second-round upsets before seeing their season end at the hands of the Bears.
