{"id":2386,"date":"2025-03-15T08:18:53","date_gmt":"2025-03-15T12:18:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsouthconference.com\/mbb\/?p=2386"},"modified":"2025-03-15T10:35:49","modified_gmt":"2025-03-15T14:35:49","slug":"apprentice-defense-stifles-villa-maria-for-second-consecutive-national-title","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsouthconference.com\/mbb\/2025\/03\/15\/apprentice-defense-stifles-villa-maria-for-second-consecutive-national-title\/","title":{"rendered":"Apprentice Defense Stifles Villa Maria for Second Consecutive National Title"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>BUFFALO, N.Y.<\/strong> &#8211; For the fourth time in program history, The Apprentice School men&#8217;s basketball team hoisted a national championship trophy after knocking off No. 3 Villa Maria Friday night 64-43.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Builders held the Vikings to just eight points in the first half as they stormed out to a 33-8 halftime lead in front of the home crowd. The eight point half is the lowest ever in a title game, surpassing the previous mark set in since 2014 when Washington Adventist held Tennessee Temple to just 17 points in a half.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Vikings put forth a fight to start the second half, going on an 8-0 run to cut the lead down to 33-16, but Apprentice never backed down, keeping Villa at bay all night and winning by the second largest margin in a title game since 2008.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With the win, the senior class of nine players will go out with back-to-back national championships, finishing their careers on top of the mountain of the USCAA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Chris Hinmon was named to the All-Tournament team after leading all scorers Friday with 16 points off the bench. Donovan Means also earned All-Tournament honors with a double-double of 10 points and 10 boards in the championship game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Adrion Wall was named Tournament MVP just days after being named the Division I Player of the Year. He finished Friday night with 14 points. Wayne Hedgepeth also had 14 points.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Head coach Michael Gainey becomes the first basketball alum to lead the Builders to a national championship, doing so in his first season at the helm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is the second time in program history that the Builders have gone back-to-back, winning their first two national championships in the 2001-02 and 02-03 seasons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Story courtesy Apprentice Athletics; image courtesy Santino Tarquino\/USCAA<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BUFFALO, N.Y. &#8211; For the fourth time in program history, The Apprentice School men&#8217;s basketball team hoisted a national championship trophy after knocking off No. 3 Villa Maria Friday night 64-43. The Builders held the Vikings to just eight points in the first half as they stormed out to a 33-8 halftime lead in front [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2387,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-apprentice","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsouthconference.com\/mbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsouthconference.com\/mbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsouthconference.com\/mbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsouthconference.com\/mbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsouthconference.com\/mbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2386"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/newsouthconference.com\/mbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2386\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2391,"href":"https:\/\/newsouthconference.com\/mbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2386\/revisions\/2391"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsouthconference.com\/mbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsouthconference.com\/mbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsouthconference.com\/mbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsouthconference.com\/mbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}