The 2025-26 Monmouth men’s basketball season concluded on Tuesday, Mar. 10 with a loss to the Hofstra Pride in the CAA Tournament.
Despite a heartbreaking loss to end the season, this edition of the Hawks was one of the best in recent history. They finished with a 19-15 record, their best as a member of the CAA and their best since the 2021-22 season, where they went 21-13.
Despite a slow start to the season, the Hawks turned it around during conference play and ended up finishing with a positive record.
After beating Division II Caldwell to open the season, Monmouth dropped three straight games, including two to power conference opponents in Seton Hall and Syracuse. The Hawks put up respectable fights in both of those games, losing by an average of 8.5 points to those two power conference foes.
After beating Robert Morris in OT, the Hawks traveled to Easton to participate in the Lafayette Classic along with Ball State, Le Moyne, and the host, Lafayette. They went 2-1 in three games over the course of three days, tying for the best record of the four participants.
The Hawks finished up the non-conference slate with a 2-3 stretch, and they entered CAA play with a 6-7 overall record.
After opening CAA play with a loss to Campbell, the Hawks went 5-4 over the next nine conference games. In a game on Jan. 29 against North Carolina A&T, junior guard Corey Miller, a homegrown kid from Ocean Township, hit an unbelievable half-court buzzer beater in overtime to take down the Aggies 83-81. Prior to that game, Miller had only played 57 minutes all season, and he became a hero across West Long Branch. That shot was the highlight of the Hawks season, as it received national attention and even made SportsCenter’s Top 10 plays.
Sitting at 11-12 overall and 5-5 in conference play, the Hawks would get a star back for their next game. Senior guard Kavion McClain, who missed the first 23 games of the season due to NCAA restrictions, returned for a road game against Stony Brook. The Hawks won that night, with McClain scoring 14 points. The return of McClain was the start of a mid-season turnaround. The Hawks finished CAA play 6-2 after McClain’s return, with their only two losses coming to the top two teams in the conference in UNC Wilmington and Charleston.
Heading into the CAA Tournament, the Hawks did enough in the second half of conference play to earn the No. 4 seed and a double-bye to the quarterfinals. Drexel, the No. 5 seed, won their second round game against No. 13 seed Northeastern to move on to face Monmouth in the quarterfinal. Monmouth opened their tournament run with a 65-57 win thanks to a second-half surge.
In the semifinal, the expectation was that the Hawks would face No. 1 seed UNC Wilmington, but they were stunned in the quarterfinal by No. 9 seed Campbell, setting up a matchup between the Fighting Camels and the Hawks. Monmouth ended up avoiding another Campbell upset and pulled out a 74-64 win after taking the lead late in the first half and holding on to it for the remainder of the game. For the first time since 2022, the Hawks were heading to a conference tournament final. In 2022, Monmouth lost in the MAAC championship in their final season in the conference to Saint Peter’s, a team which went on a Cinderella run to the Elite Eight in the NCAA Tournament.
In the CAA championship, the Hawks were taking on a familiar foe in Hofstra. As the No. 3 seed, they stunned No. 7 seed Towson in the semifinal on a three-point basket with 0.3 seconds left in overtime that gave the Pride the win.
Hofstra had already beaten Monmouth twice on the season, and they ended up beating them a third time in a 75-69 thriller to advance to the NCAA Tournament and end Monmouth’s season. The Hawks did not go down without a fight, as despite trailing for most of the second half, they hung around and even got the deficit as low as one point late in the game. Hofstra would end up losing their first game in the NCAA Tournament to Alabama ten days after their championship victory.
The star of the season for Monmouth was junior forward Jason Rivera-Torres, after transferring in from San Francisco, he averaged 15.8 points per game and 8.1 rebounds per game. His efforts earned him second team All-CAA and All-Defensive team honors. Sophomore guard Justin Ray and freshman forward Stefanos Spartalis also averaged double digit points, with Ray averaging 11.3 points per game and Spartalis averaging 10.7. McClain ended up averaging 17.1 points per game for the Hawks in only 11 games played. Monmouth went 8-3 to finish the season after McClain joined the team. Other key contributors to the Hawks season included junior forward Cornelius Robinson III, redshirt junior guard Andrew Ball, and senior guard Jack Collins.
Despite the loss in the conference championship, the Hawks had their best season as a member of the CAA and have a lot of momentum entering the 2026-27 season, as Monmouth will look to get over the hump and reach the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2006.
