Colin Mitchell’s title-winning buzzer-beater honors his late grandfather

INDIANAPOLIS — The two weeks in between Mary Washington’s win over Trinity in the national semifinal and the Division-III National Championship Game in Indianapolis against Emory felt like an eternity for sophomore guard Colin Mitchell.

In Emporia, 124 miles south of UMW’s Fredericksburg campus, three days on from helping the Eagles clinch a spot in that game, Mitchell sat with his family, grieving the loss, and celebrating the life of his grandfather, Cliff, who passed just 10 days earlier at the age of 79.

Memories flowed back to Mitchell. Long-gone days of youth, in the fields of his grandparents’ farm in Southern Virginia, where his father Jason and mother Tricia would often bring him along. It was at that farm where Mitchell learned how to fish with his grandfather, and then later, learned how to drive. Those – along with some of Mitchell’s basketball games growing up – were the activities that brought the family together.

But after beating cancer four times, Cliff’s health went downhill in his late 70s. Mitchell, playing college basketball, didn’t get to see his family as often as he would’ve liked as his grandfather went into hospice. Mitchell was able to see him once in hospice before he passed, but he couldn’t be beside him. The family came together for the funeral, but then Mitchell had to go back to Fredericksburg to prepare.

The next family gathering would be in Indianapolis.

Between his dad’s side of the family, which included Mitchell’s recently widowed grandmother Joan, and his mom’s side of the family, which lives just three hours away from Indianapolis, Mitchell told Mid-Major Madness that 20 family members were at the national championship game.

And they wouldn’t leave disappointed.

Mary Washington blew a 13-point lead in the final minutes as Ethan Fauss came down the court and made a three for Emory to tie the game at 73 with seconds remaining. Mitchell, a sharpshooting guard, was ready to watch this last possession be Kye Robinson’s moment. But when the All-American couldn’t keep his balance on his shot on the baseline, Mitchell noticed that space opened up under the basket.

In one motion, he grabbed the ball off the glass and put it in the basket as the horn sounded. He beat the buzzer to win the national championship, 75-73, for the Eagles’ first title in program history.

“I blacked out and started running,” Mitchell told Mid-Major Madness.

He quickly went to find his family, which eagerly awaited the greeting of their hero. The first person he went to was Joan.

“(Cliff’s) ring was around her chest, and she was holding it the whole game,” Mitchell said. “When I went up there, she was holding it, and she gave me a big hug.”

Not only had he won the national championship for his Mary Washington family, which included the lacrosse team and other students who had driven all the way from Fredericksburg to Indianapolis to support the Eagles in the game, but he’d won it for his own family.

The spectacle of playing in the national championship game had already brought the family together in celebration. But to combine it with one of the most incredible moments in Division-III basketball history? That’s a whole other thing.

And it’s not like anybody could’ve expected it.

This was supposed to be Robinson’s moment. He was the second-team All-American who had the ball in his hands on the final possession. He had 27 points in the title game and had been Mary Washington’s best player all year long. This story is supposed to be written about him. But the magic of basketball is that it doesn’t have to be.

“He got to a spot in the mid-range,” Mitchell said of Robinson on the final possession. “Shoots a shot, and he slips. He still doesn’t know if he slipped, or whatever it was.”

Mitchell was perhaps the most unlikely player on the floor to come down with the basketball. Entering the championship game, he had just eight offensive rebounds all season. He’s a sniper. That’s his role.

The vast majority (86%) of Mitchell’s field goal attempts came from beyond the arc. He’d made just five two-point field goals all season and eight in his career, but he had to get something off the backboard when the ball found him.

“I saw their big go to block Kye,” Mitchell said. “And there was no one that crashed down to me. I got the offensive board, and I just prayed. I said ‘please, just get the ball up to me and let me make a play.’ And the ball came right to me. I knew I had limited time, so I quickly got it up there and put it off the glass.”

Mitchell lives for the Division-III basketball experience. He gets to play high-level basketball but said that he chose Mary Washington because of the “small-knit community of great people” that comprise the student body.

In between the funeral and the trip to Indianapolis, with the game still over a week away, Mitchell’s mind was full. Between all of the family that he wasn’t able to be with, and the most important game of his life that loomed, he had to lean on his teammates.

“My teammates rallied around me,” he said. “We went out for dinners at the dining hall, and they brought me to their rooms to hang out and keep my mind off it, which was really good… I wouldn’t have been able to get through it without my team.”

The few hours after a team wins a championship are a complete blur. Between the initial frenzy and mob on the court, to cutting down the nets in short order to make way for the court changeover for the NIT Championship game, Mary Washington got whisked into the locker room fairly quickly. Mitchell came out to do the winning press conference, still trying to process the moment.

But once the team got back to the hotel, he finally had the chance to have a more fleshed-out conversation with his family.

“They were just saying how proud they were,” Mitchell said. “Of all the hard work and dedication that I’ve put into basketball and just seen it pay off for me.”

And that would’ve been the case win-or-lose. Some things are bigger than the score.

But it’s extra special for it to go down the way it did.

“To dedicate that name to (my grandfather’s) name,” Mitchell said. “And dedicate what I was doing over the last couple of weeks, and then just being able to show that on the court for everyone to see, it was a dream come true.”