Liberty Men’s Basketball beats Jacksonville State to win first-ever CUSA Tournament title

The top-seeded Liberty University Men’s Basketball team secured its first Conference USA (CUSA) title with a 79-67 victory over No. 2 seed Jacksonville State University in the CUSA Championship Final round Saturday night at Propst Arena.  

With this championship win, along with the Lady Flames winning in their division, both basketball teams added another conference title during the same season for the first time since 2004. The Flames also improved their record to 28-6 for the season, punching their ticket to the 2025 NCAA Division I March Madness Tournament.  

“Praise God, it’s really hard to win a championship,” Liberty Head Coach Ritchie McKay said. “All that you go through and the season-long journey is sometimes a bumpy road to better. I’m really proud of our group because they just responded on every occasion.” This win brought Liberty its seventh conference tournament title in the program’s Division I history and the first since 2021. It is also McKay’s fourth conference tournament championship while coaching at Liberty, all coming during the past seven seasons.  

“We’re really proud to represent Conference USA and Liberty University in the NCAA Tournament,” McKay said. “Having been there a few times and not been there in three years, I know what a privilege it is, and I’m glad our guys get the experience.”  

Jax State scored the first five points of the game and jumped out to a 12-4 lead thanks to redshirt senior guard Jaron Pierre Jr. who scored five of the Gamecocks’ first 12 points. Junior guard Colin Porter then hit a 3-pointer on the next Liberty possession, instigating a 25-6 run for the Flames over seven minutes of game time. 

Nevertheless, the Gamecocks did not back down easily with their season on the line. They cut the Flames’ lead to just four points thanks to Pierre’s nine points in the last 5:32 of the first half. Pierre ended the half with 16 of the 33 points for Jax State.  

“We brought a little bit more help on the ball. He (Pierre) is such a good one-on-one scorer that we wanted to make him give it up at times,” McKay said. “… The guys that had him one-on-one during the game, Jayvon obviously did a good job, Colin had him some. … But I think when you bring a second defender to him, that helped us tonight because he’s an unselfish player trying to make the right play.” 

Pierre did not make a field goal in the final 20 minutes of the game and only made it into the scoring column with some free throws to pad his stats up to 19 total points in the game.  

The Flames shot 60% from the field and 60% from behind the arc over 40 minutes. Liberty also had three of its five starters end the evening with double digits in the point column. Porter, junior forward Zach Cleveland and redshirt senior guard Kaden Metheny ended with 13, 10 and 21 points respectively for a total of 44 points. Porter led the team with nine assists while Cleveland grabbed a team-high seven rebounds.  

Redshirt senior guard Taelon Peter also added in 20 of 23 points off the bench, shooting a perfect 7 for 7 from the field and 3 for 3 from behind the arc.  

Metheny and Peter both earned awards for their dominant play during the CUSA Men’s Basketball Tournament. Metheny was named Tournament MVP, averaging 20.3 points per game while shooting 16 for 31 (51.6%) from 3-point range. Peter joined Metheny on the All-Tournament Team, scoring 45 total points over three tournament games and shooting an impressive 16 for 21 (76.2%) from the field over three conference tournament games.  

“I don’t think it’s truly hit me yet, what just happened,” Metheny said. “Hopefully it will tomorrow when the name is announced, but it’s been a dream of mine growing up (to get to March Madness).”  

After defeating the Gamecocks, Liberty ended its season with a 13-5 regular season conference record and a 28-6 overall record. The team’s next contest will be held in Seattle, Washington March 21 against the No. 5 University of Oregon Ducks in the First Round of the March Madness Tournament for the NCAA’s East Region. This game will be the first time in program history these two teams will meet.  

“It’s really hard to be grateful for what you feel entitled to,” McKay said. “I don’t ever want to feel entitled for winning. I want our guys to celebrate it and enjoy it because I think it’s really hard to do.”  

Clingman is a sports reporter for the Liberty Champion.