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Northwest Missouri State has become the first Division II school to win the men's basketball and football championships in the same season, doing so with a 71-61 victory over Fairmont State on Saturday in Sioux Falls, S.D. Northwest Missouri State finished 35-1 this season. The Bearcats held off Lincoln Memorial (Tenn.) in the semifinals on Thursday. The Northwest Missouri State football team defeated North Alabama 29-3 in December to win the Division II title. Florida pulled off the football-men's hoops double in 2006-07. Oklahoma State also can lay claim to winning two titles in the same year. The Cowboys won the NCAA tournament in 1945-46, and in October they were retroactively named the 1945 national champions by the American Football Coaches Association. In Saturday's game, Justin Pitts scored 23 points and Chris-Ebou Ndow finished with 17 points and 18 rebounds to lead the Bearcats. Pitts hit a 3-pointer to open the game, a layup by Woods made it 13-3 lead about 5-plus minutes in and Northwest Missouri State took a 32-21 lead into the break. Another 3 by Pitts gave the Bearcats their biggest lead, 36-22, with 18 minutes to go and Fairmont State (34-3) trailed by at least eight the rest of the way. A layup by Shammgod Wells cut Fairmont's deficit to 60-52 with 4:54 left, but Ndow answered with a layup eight seconds later and the Falcons missed their next eight shots, and two free throws by Ndow made it 68-54 with 1:12 remaining. Fairmont, which came in averaging 95.4 points per game, shot just 31 percent (9 of 29) from the field in the first half. The Falcons set season lows for points in a half (21 in the first) and total points. Both teams were appearing in their first D-II national championship game and each set school records for wins in a season. Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.
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