SPOKANE, Wash. – The Whitworth University men's basketball team hosts a pair of opponents from the Deep South in the coming week. The Pirates will host Mary Hardin-Baylor (Texas) on Saturday at 4:00 pm before taking on Belhaven (Miss.) on Monday at 6:00 pm.
Check the Whitworth men's basketball schedule for live links to this week's games.
Tickets: Digital tickets are required for entrance to the Whitworth Fieldhouse for all fans. Tickets can be purchased in advance using the Hometown Ticketing App (www.whitworthpirates.com/tickets). Tickets are $12 for adults and $6 for senior adults, non-Whitworth students and children. Whitworth students, as well as faculty and staff, get free admission by using an ID number.
The Pirates: Whitworth (4-0) won a pair of games in Minnesota the weekend before Thanksgiving. The opponents shared the 2025 MIAC regular season championship.
The Pirates battled back from an 11-point second half deficit to win 62-60 at Gustavus Adolphus on November 20th. Whitworth overcame 19 turnovers to hand the Gusties their first loss of the season. The Bucs held Gustavus to 37.8% shooting from the field. Colton Looney scored 18 points and grabbed nine rebounds to lead Whitworth. Stephen Behil added 13 points, including a pair of late three-pointers to help the Pirates grab the lead.
Whitworth completed the North Star State sweep with a 74-58 win at Saint John's on November 22nd. The Pirates held SJU to only 30.4% (21-69) from the field, 21.3% (10-47) from three-point range and forced the Johnnies into 16 turnovers. Behil led the way with a season-high 20 points, while Caden Bateman scored 11 points. Ben Nyquist had 10 points, six rebounds, five steals and three assists. Ty Edwards grabbed 12 rebounds.
Stingy Pirates: Defense has been the early calling card for the 2025-26 Whitworth men's basketball team. The Bucs lead all of NCAA Div. III in field goal percentage defense (30.7%) and rank second in three-point percentage defense (21.8%). Whitworth also leads the NWC and ranks sixth nationally in scoring defense (59.3 ppg).
Whitworth has also been dominant on the boards. The Pirates lead NCAA Division III in defensive rebounds per game (38.0) and second in total rebounds per game (50.0).
Top-25 Debut: Whitworth made its debut in the D3hoops.com top-25 poll on November 24th at 25th. The Pirates stayed 25th in the rankings in this week's poll (Dec. 1) despite not playing a game over the Thanksgiving break.
Watch on FloCollege: Like the rest of the Northwest Conference, Whitworth's home athletic events will be steamed through FloCollege in 2025-26. Fans can sign up to watch Pirate sports on the FloCollege portal. Registration is $116 for an annual subscription or $20 per month. Those who register with a .edu email address get a significant discount.
Inland Northwest Athletics Hall of Fame inductee Bud Nameck, familiar in Spokane as the KXLY channel 4 sports director for over 20 years and the longtime host of the KXLY 920am Morning News, is in his 11th season as the voice of the Pirates in 2025. He was the voice of Washington State University men's basketball for 22 years and spent that same amount of time on the Cougar football broadcasts – the final three on play by play. He is a longtime resident of the Inland Northwest who began his career as the Sports Information Director and radio voice of Gonzaga University basketball and baseball in the 1980s.
The Opponents: Mary Hardin-Baylor, from Belton, Texas, comes into the weekend 2-3 before Thursday night's game at Whitman. The Crusaders, members of the American Southwest Conference, lost 77-71 at the University of St. Thomas in November 29th in their last game. First year head coach Sam Patterson previously was an assistant at Oral Roberts for eight years. Senior guard Hudson Johnson averages 18.2 points per game, while making 48.5% of his three-pointers, and 4.0 assists per game. Senior wing Zack Engels adds 14.8 points and 8.8 rebounds per contest. UMHB finished 14-11 in 2024-25. The Cru defeated the Pirates 93-74 in Spokane on Dec 21, 2022 in the last match up between the schools.
Belhaven, from Jackson, Mississippi, comes into the weekend 2-6 after losing 88-80 at home to Milsaps on Tuesday night. The Blazers, members of the Collegiate Conference of the South, will play at Whitman on Saturday. Boomer Roberts is in his first year as head coach following seven seasons as a head coach at Purdue Northwest (NCAA Div. II). Four players average double figures, led by junior guard Dan Robinson (15.1 ppg, 5.0 apg). First year guard Braylon Dame adds 14.3 points per game. Belhaven went 21-5 last winter and won the CCS with an 11-1 record. The Pirates and Blazers played a classic in Spokane last year when Whitworth pulled out a 66-64 in on December 6th, exactly one year prior to this year's game.
Pirates picked to win: Whitworth is listed at the top of the 2025-26 Northwest Conference coaches poll with eight first place votes and 64 points. The Pirates are coming off a 22-4 record in 2024-25 and a Northwest Conference title with a 13-3 mark. Whitman got one first place vote and has 53 points for second in the poll. PLU and Puget Sound (44 points apiece) tied for third.
Two Decades of Dominance: Since the beginning of the 2005-06 season (over 18 seasons) the Pirates are 452-103 (.814), an amazing run of success matched by few other college teams at any level. Within the Northwest Conference, Whitworth has won 233 of its last 265 (.879).
Home-Sweet-Home: Whitworth has been stellar in the Whitworth Fieldhouse since the 1990's. During the decade of the 1990s and 2000's Whitworth won more than 84% of its home games. However, since the beginning of the 2005-06 season, the Bucs are 228-29 (.889) at home.
The Pirates have had two home-court winning streaks of more than 40 games since 1990. A 41-game home court winning streak from early 2009 until December of 2011 was the second-longest in Pirate history. The school record for consecutive home victories is 43, beginning during the 1994-95 season and ending during the 1997-98 season.
Road Warriors: As good as Whitworth is at home, the Pirates have been almost as good away from the Whitworth Fieldhouse over the last 14 seasons. Since the start of the 11-12 season, Whitworth is 133-42 (.760) away from home, 104-28 (.788) in true road games.
The Coach: Damion Jablonski is in his 15th season on the Pirate coaching staff in 2025-26, and his seventh as head coach of the Pirates. He is 119-39 as Whitworth's head coach. Jablonski has led Whitworth to the NCAA Division III tournament four times as the head coach, the only non-tournament years was due to Covid-19 and last winter when the Bucs were upset in the conference semifinals. His first year was a rousing success. He went 23-6, led the Pirates to a share of the Northwest Conference championship and to a pair of victories in the NCAA Division III tournament. The Bucs were slated to face top-ranked Swarthmore before the tournament was canceled. Jablonski was named D3hoops.com West Region Coach of the Year and he coached Ben College to NWC Player of the Year and NABC All-America recognition. Whitworth went 12-5 during the COVID-19 season in 2020-21, including games against NCAA DI Montana, NCAA DII Seattle Pacific and NAIA playoff regular College of Idaho. Whitworth finished 22-5 overall and 13-3 in the NWC in 2021-22 to once again share the regular season title before winning the conference tournament.
Jablonski spent eight years as the top assistant at Whitworth, including six seasons with the title of Associate Head Coach. Over the course of his tenure as an assistant, the Bucs won 215 games, seven Northwest Conference titles and seven NWC tournament crowns. As the head recruiting coordinator, Jablonski was instrumental in continuing the Bucs' tradition of success by helping to recruit high quality student-athletes to Whitworth. Jablonski is joined by assistant coaches Nick Sullivan, a former graduate assistant at Gonzaga, and Seth Hall, a former NWC Player of the Year at Pacific Lutheran.
Coming Up Next: Following final exams, Whitworth will travel to California for games at Pomona-Pitzer (Dec. 15), Claremont-Mudd-Scripps (Dec. 16) and Chapman (Dec. 18).
