Jadon Burgess was effective and efficient as his Mary Washington basketball squad upset Trinity – ranked No. 1 in the country at the time in Division III – in the NCAA Tournament.
“My teammates found me when I was open,” said Burgess, the former Harrisonburg High standout who had 12 points as he made four of five shots from the field, including three of four from three-point range.
“It was huge. They were the defending national champions,” Burgess added of that March 21 win in Fort Wayne, Indiana. “They had good players; they were talented and they had a great run. For us, it came down to relying on our principles.”
Now the Eagles and Burgess – a junior who grew up in Bridgewater – will aim for a national title when they play on Sunday in Indianapolis against Emory in the championship contest. It will be the first time since 1993 that any Mary Washington team has played for a national title.
Burgess has played in 28 of the 32 games with 25 starts and is averaging 24.8 minutes, 9.8 points and 3.9 rebounds per outing, with 31 assists. He is fourth on the team in scoring. He missed the first four games of the season after coming off a broken nose and surgery.
The head coach for Mary Washington is Marcus Kahn, who is in his 12th season and led Cabrini (near Philadelphia) to the Division III national title game during the 2011-2012 season.
“He is someone who will be there for you and tell you want you need to hear if it is what you may not want to hear,” Burgess said. “Authenticity is hard to come by. To be able to play for him, that brings out the best in me as a competitor, knowing that our coach has our back.”
Burgess has steadily improved in college.
He played in 20 games, with one start, as a freshman while scoring just 1.4 points per contest. As a sophomore, he started all 30 games and averaged 8.9 points per contest and had 10 points and 10 rebounds in a game against Bridgewater.
Being around hoop coaches is nothing new to Burgess.
His father, Don, was a hoops standout at Division I Radford and was an assistant coach at that level before taking over the head job at Division III Bridgewater, a member of the powerful Old Dominion Athletic Conference. The elder Burgess is also the former coach at Harrisonburg High, where one of his top players was his son.
Jadon Burgess considered several ODAC schools coming out of high school.
His final two options were Division I Radford and Mary Washington, which plays in the Coast-to-Coast Athletic Conference. The Eagles played this season in Santa Cruz, California, at the home of a pro G League team.
“Obviously I grew up watching the ODAC with my dad coaching at Bridgewater. I had a little bit of a different lens, knowing the classification of Division III basketball,” he said. “I was definitely open with my options. The Radford situation was a little different and unique. It would have been more of a redshirt (situation) coming in and not really seeing the floor” as a freshman.
The roster of the Eagles is filled with Virginia residents. A freshman on the team is Josh Sewordor, who is from Culpeper and starred at Eastern View High.
Mary Washington sophomore Kye Robinson, who is from Alexandria City High, is scoring 24.3 points per contest and has gained all-region honors. “What comes to mind is competitor,” Burgess said of Robinson. “That goes for a lot of my teammates. We all trust each other.”
And they are one win from a national title.
Hoops Notes
- Randolph-Macon of the ODAC won the national Division III title in 2022 and Virginia Wesleyan was the champ in 2006.
- Mary Washington beat EMU 72-64 in Fredericksburg on Nov. 8, 2025, though Burgess missed that game.
- Former Harrisonburg High hoops standout Charlie Thomas was part of a Virginia Tech team that won the NIT title in 1971.
- The University of Virginia won the NIT title in 1980 back of future Hall of Famer Ralph Sampson, the Harrisonburg High product who was a freshman that season.
- Hampden-Sydney lost in the national title Division III game in 2024 and 1999, and Virginia Wesleyan fell in the title contest in 2007.
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David Driver
