Looking Back at the 2025-26 Men's Basketball Season

CARLINVILLE, IL – Blackburn College continues its look back at the 2025-26 athletic season with the 2025-26 men's basketball season.

The men's basketball team made a return to the St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference after missing out in 2024-25 and featured two players with over 17 points a game to help score their most points in a season since the 2019-20 season.

Freshman Jaylen Jeter led the team with 17.7 points and 2.6 steals per game while freshman Evan Jordan added 17.2 point 2.3 steals per game to both earn SLIAC All-Conference honors. Jordan was named the SLIAC Freshman of the Year and Third Team All-SLIAC while Jeter was named Sixth Man of the Year along with earning First Team All-Conference and All-Defensive Team honors.

Junior Payton Cook earned All-Sportsmanship Team recognition while posting 6.8 points along with 5.9 rebounds during SLIAC play. He also added 24 assists, nine steals and a team best 15 blocks. He averaged 8.2 points with a block per game throughout the full season.

Junior Kamerin Carter added 11.1 points a game with junior Kcion Welch contributing 8.5 points Welch was also second on the team with 4.9 rebounds with Jordan posting 4.8 rebounds and a team best 2.1 assists.

The Beavers featured several new faces as they featured essentially a new starting lineup with four new players starting over 20 games. The team started slow as they learned to gel together but picked up their first win of the year with an 83-59 victory over Principia College. They followed it with a 95-63 victory over Emmaus University.

2026 started with a 102-90 win over Eureka College before beating Westminster College 80-74. After dropping two games, the Beavers closed out the regular season winning five of their last six games, including a five-game winning streak.

The run began with Blackburn besting Principia 90-69 before winning at Mississippi University for Women, the eventual conference winner, 59-58, by overcoming a five-point deficit in the last two minutes. They then went on to defeat Lyon College 74-72 in a game that saw the Beavers open the game with a 22-8 advantage. They then were able to bounce back after falling behind in the second half to win the intense back and forth battle.

Blackburn continued their streak with a 71-45 win over Spalding and 84-70 victory at Westminster.

In the SLIAC Tournament, the Beavers visited Lyon in the quarterfinals but were unable to overcome a hot start by the Scots and fell 75-48.