Booneville, MS – Northeast Men's Basketball Head Coach Cord Wright has officially wrapped up the 2025-26 season and another winning season in the record books with the Tigers ending the year 18-14 overall including a first-round win in the MACCC playoffs.
Northeast had a strong start to the season with a four-game win streak starting with a dominant 100-82 win over Marion Military led by a 30 point / 18 rebound performance from Jalen Chandler and a 17 point / 15 rebound outing from Michael Johnson. Later in November the Tigers took on their rivals of Itawamba inside of Bonner Arnold Coliseum in non-conference action where Northeast took down the Indians 75-63 before heading to Georgia where they steamrolled past East Georgia State 73-57 with Yoshi Nimmo scoring a career high 30 points against the Bobcats.
December was a successful month for the Tigers who won four of their five games heading into winter break. Northeast grabbed wins over Mississippi Delta (81-72) and East Central (83-56) in non-conference play while taking down Three Rivers College – MO in the Harvey Childers Classic 77-71. The final game of the month was a rematch against Wallace State – Hanceville who handed the Tigers a loss on the road in November but could not repeat as Northeast took the rematch 82-78 to end the calendar year with a 10-6 record.
Conference play kicked off in January with the Tigers grabbing their first win of 2026 inside of Bonner Arnold by taking down Coahoma 81-75. That win sparked a 5-1 run through the first few weeks of February that included an upset win over nationally ranked #19 Jones 95-91 on the road with Ezekiel Udozorh and Javion Stephen each reaching the 20+ scoring mark in the win. In the final stretch of regular season play, Northeast took hold of a 97-60 win over Mississippi Delta with six players for the Tigers reaching double figures and then concluded their regular season against East Mississippi where it came down to the wire for the Tigers who claimed the win 87-83 to head into the MACCC Playoffs as the tenth seed.
Round one of the playoffs put Northeast on the road against the Tigers of Coahoma where NEMCC were able to find their stride early on and took down the seventh seed 63-53 to advance to the next round. Northeast took on Southwest in the quarterfinals on the road where Buddy Spearman was able to light up the scoreboard from beyond the arc with 25 points with Stephen adding 21 of his own to keep the score within reach but eventually fell 81-74 to the Bears to conclude the 2025-26 campaign.
Northeast averaged 78.7 points per game as a unit during the season led by a quartet of double figure scorers in Stephen (14.6), Udozorh (13.4), Chandler (11.6), and Johnson (10.1). One of the top three-point shooting teams in the conference, Northeast ranked first in the MACCC in three-point percentage at 36.3% while Spearman individually ranked 5th in the conference at 42.4% and 5th in threes made at 67 with Stephen leading all candidates with 76 made three-pointers on the season. With a very distributed offense the Tigers were able to find a trio of playmakers to run the point with Stephen, Zane Tipler, and Tayler Berryhill all recording over 100 assists and all ranking in the top twenty in the conference in assists per game.