After three years, brothers Carson and Collin Parker have been valuable players for the Columbia College men’s basketball team, scoring a combined 2,280 points and helping the Cougars reach the NAIA Men’s Basketball National Tournament twice.

Now, the Montgomery County graduates are looking forward to being teammates for one more year next season.

Carson, who graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in business administration in May, has an extra year of eligibility due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Collin will be a senior and plans to graduate in 2025.

“It’s always nice to get to play with Collin and get to play college basketball one more year and go to school one more year to further my education,” said Carson, who is working on getting a Master’s degree. “That COVID year was not the best for everybody, but it helped me get one more year of basketball.”

The Parkers helped the Cougars finish 24-7 overall and 12-2 in American Midwest Conference play, their fifth consecutive winning season. They lost to Indiana Wesleyan 105-99 in double overtime in a first-round game of the national tournament at Marion, Ind.

The loss to Indiana Wesleyan marked the second year in a row Columbia College fell in the first round at nationals. Last year, they began tournament play with a loss to Morningside University.

“We were definitely underdogs,” Collin said. “In double overtime, we were right there. We had a chance to win it, but we just felt short.”

Collin turned in his best season with the Cougars this winter, earning third-team all-American honors and was voted the AMC’s Most Valuable Player. He averaged 18.7 points and finished with 24 blocked shots. He finished with 29 points in the loss to Indiana Wesleyan in nationals.

“I think I made a lot of improvements from last year,” said Collin, who graduated from MCHS in 2021. “I had a lot of great teammates. My teammates threw me the ball at the right spots. Overall, it was a really good year. I thought we did really well.”

The 6-foot-8 Collin now has 1,447 points in his career with Columbia. He earned all-conference honors in each of the last three years. Collin said he learned after three years that college basketball is much different than high school.

“You have to put in a lot more work,” Collin said. “It’s pretty much like a full time job. They’re giving you a scholarship to be there, so you have to show up every day and put in the work and get better.”

Carson averaged 5.8 points per game. His best performance came against the College of the Ozarks on Feb. 20, when he scored 18 points.

“I had another healthy year,” Carson said. “I played in every game, so that’s always good. I didn’t have the main scoring role, but I did well at the defensive end and rebounding wise. I always tried to be a leader on the team, be one of the older guys and help the younger guys and help our team come out in the win column.”

Carson, who graduated from MCHS in 2020, scored 833 points and played in 120 games in his four years at Columbia with one more season to go.

Both Carson and Collin also were successful in the classroom. Collin, who is majoring in finance, was named to the academic all-conference team the last three years and earned academic all-district and all-American honors this year. Carson was named to the academic all-conference team all four years and was chosen on the academic all-district and NAIA Daktronics Scholar Athlete teams in each of the last two years.