Twenty years ago last March, John Brown University’s men’s basketball team pulled off one of the most improbable NAIA National Tournament runs, claiming JBU’s first and only NAIA national title. Yet what is often forgotten is how the march to the championship almost didn’t get off the ground.
In the middle of the 2004-05 season, JBU suffered a tough 69-63 defeat to Southern Nazarene for its third straight conference loss, putting the team’s season at a mediocre 14-10 record and its postseason hopes in jeopardy.
“One of the guys on the team, an inspirational leader named Ty Sawyer, came over to me and said, ‘Coach, are we going to make the national tournament?’ I remember looking at him right after a loss, and I said, ‘Ty, at this point, we’ll be lucky to make the conference tournament,’” said John Sheehy, JBU men’s head basketball coach from 1989-2007.
At the lowest moment, the Golden Eagles found a hot streak and won their last five regular-season contests, enough to secure a No. 5 seed in the Sooner Athletic Conference Tournament. Despite their newfound momentum, it wasn’t smooth sailing, and JBU lost a nail-biter 56-48 to No. 6 seed Oklahoma Baptist in the first round. JBU’s only hope was an at-large bid for the NAIA National Tournament.
Thanks in large part to their late-season surge, the Golden Eagles squeaked into the field of 32 as an unseeded team, matched against No. 7 seed Union (Tennessee). Going into the tournament, there was an atmosphere of excitement among the players, but Sheehy said there wasn’t a lot of pressure or expectation of winning a national title.
In the first round, JBU edged out Union 84-72 and then defeated No. 10 seed LSU Shreveport 61-56 to advance to the quarterfinals, setting up a showdown with Biola University. The NAIA tournament is a single-elimination tournament, where teams are only given one day off between most games.
“You play one game, and if you win that, you pick up the videotape of the team you’re going to play the next day,” Sheehy said. “We had to get the guys back to the hotel, get them fed and get them in bed. Then the assistant, Donnie, and I would meet in the lobby and work on the game plan for the next day.”
The quarterfinal against unseeded Biola (California) would turn out to be the closest game the Golden Eagles would play during the tournament.
“That game was hard. They had a big center,” Sheehy said. “We did a good job making it difficult for him to score, but that was a close, hard-fought game.”
Biola took a three-point shot at the buzzer that would have won the game, but it missed, and JBU secured the rebound to win 58-56.
Because the tournament took place over spring break, and JBU was not a high seed, not many people traveled to the games. Luke Davis ’05, owner of Main Street Studios in Siloam Springs, was a senior photography major in 2005 and photographed the tournament for the Kansas City Star newspaper. Davis remembers that as they moved through the tournament, JBU became a favorite of the locals.
“I think they could tell what kind of character the players on the team had, and that they were having fun,” Davis said. “And then when they got to the semifinal, everyone was rooting for them, as they kept knocking off the big teams.”
JBU claimed the semifinal game against unseeded Carroll College (Montana) 73-60, setting up a national championship showdown with No. 9 seed Azusa Pacific (California).
“What we tried to do is get two or three points of emphasis in our players’ minds. If we do these things, and we do them well, we’ve got a chance to win this game,” Sheehy said. “We tried to keep our players focused on the process, not the result.”
With the mentality of “just another game,” the players went out and made history, fighting their way to a 65-55 win.
Brandon Cole ’06 led the Golden Eagles, scoring 25 points on his way to winning the Chuck Taylor Tournament MVP. Cole was recently inducted into the Small College Basketball Hall of Fame and ended his career as JBU men’s basketball’s all-time leading scorer with 2,390 points.
“Unity is so important to success, and as we look back on that season and that group of players, it was a unified team that had a deep passion and trust for one another,” Cole said. “When you have that kind of trust, you know you can do anything. You know you can overcome. We were losing games. We were struggling, but all of us deep down knew what we could do.”
Cole said that being selected for the NAIA tournament gave the team additional confidence, and it felt like a new season had begun.
“The moment we heard that we were in the tournament, I don’t think there was doubt in any of our hearts that we could beat anyone, that we were playing our best basketball,” he said. “We had a truly unified team made up of individuals with great skill who worked together to put on this beautiful show. The other thing that I think was special about our team was that we had a group of guys who were passionate about their faith in Jesus.”
Sheehy agreed that team unity and playing cohesively allowed the 2005 team to win the championship game.
“That was our time, and I think for our players, the best thing about it was how they supported one another and played so well together,” Sheehy said.
The trophy they hoisted in Kansas City cemented the team’s place in JBU history, transforming a midseason slump into a defining story of trust and resilience. That improbable journey from the brink of missing the conference tournament to standing atop the NAIA was more than just a bracket upset; it was a character-defining moment for every man on the roster.
“The bigger thrill 20 years later is looking back and seeing these guys who have turned into men and what they’ve done in life; how they’ve taken the determination and team orientation that it takes to win a national championship, and they’ve applied that to life,” Sheehy said. “Virtually all of them have been very successful, love and serve the Lord, and do a lot of good things in life. That’s the most rewarding thing.”
