University of Saint Francis faculty, staff, friends and family gathered on Wednesday night to honor its men’s basketball team that finished 2011 NAIA Division II National Championship Runner-up earlier this month.

Under first-year head coach Chad LaCross, the Cougars were the No. 13 seed and made it back to the championship game losing to Cornerstone University 80-71 on March 15. USF became just the second team in the 20-year history of the NAIA National Championship to make it to back-to-back championship games.

Over the last two years, this team went won 56 games, was 56-19, a .747 winning percentage, and the best two-season record in USF men’s basketball program history.

The Cougars won the 2010 NAIA D II Championship and this year became the first team since Bethel to advance to back-to-back NAIA National Championship Games. In fact, USF is only the second team in 20 years to make it to back-to-back title games. USF won the 2011 Mid-Central College Conference Tournament title and was just the fourth team in 18 years to win the title game on the road upsetting defending tournament champion and 2011 regular season champion Indiana Wesleyan 76-63 on their home floor.

Individually, Senior DeJovaun Sawyer-Davis was named MCC Player of the Year, just the second Cougar to earn that honor, was an NAIA 1st Team All-American, and was named to the NAIA Championship All-Tournament Team for the second consecutive year. Junior Q Owens was a second-team NAIA All-American and Ferdie Morales-Soto was named NAIA Tournament Hustle Award winner for an unprecedented second year in a row.

USF won nine consecutive NAIA Championship games before falling to Cornerstone, all by eight or fewer points, an impressive run considering the pressure.

"I am so proud of what these guys accomplished and I thank them for getting up to come to practice when it was still dark out in the morning, for playing when they hurt or sick, for battling through all kinds of adversity, for posting the best start in USF basketball history, for a first-ever MCC Tournament Championship winning on the road no less," USF Head Coach Chad LaCross said.