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It's really too bad someone had to lose the Region XIV men's basketball championship game, especially when that someone is Lewis Orr.

Orr, the head coach at Navarro College for 32 years - with a career record of 678-421 - has never led a team to the national tournament.

He's been oh, so close - snake-bitten two years in a row in the regional finals.

Paris beat Navarro, 50-49, on two free throws with 6.9 seconds to play on March 10 in Kilgore. The Bulldogs missed a shot at the buzzer that would have punched Orr's ticket to Hutchinson, Kan., for nationals.

In the 2007 regional final, Navarro had three shots at either tying or winning the game in the final seconds. The Bulldogs lost to Lon Morris, 65-63.

Even more unkind, the one year Navarro won the Region XIV postseason title - in 1978 - the Bulldogs did not receive an automatic bid to the national tournament. Back then, a playoff with the Region V winner was common. Navarro lost the bi-regional game against Nolan Richardson's Western Texas Westerners, 81-79, in Stephenville.

The NJCAA now recognizes bi-regional playoffs as games in the national tournament and shows Navarro with an 0-1 record, according to Corsicana's Mike Montfort.

That little nugget aside, you can't blame Coach Orr, 36 years in Juco ball, if he is just a little jealous of Ross Hodge at Paris.

Hodge is coaching a team in Hutchinson on this very day, and he's only 27 years old. He stepped into a good situation at Paris and hasn't disappointed. Hodge is 55-10 in two seasons at the helm, including one regular-season conference title and this year's regional tournament crown.

He took over for current University of North Texas assistant Bill Foy, who coached Paris to the school's only national basketball championship in 2005. Hodge played for Foy at Paris and was his assistant for one season.

The golden age of Paris basketball includes six regional finals appearances in the last 10 years.

"Obviously, I think coach Foy did a phenomenal job of just bringing in guys with good character and getting his teams to buy in to playing good solid team basketball on both ends of the floor," said Hodge, speaking from his hotel room in Hutchinson on Monday. "I was very fortunate to take over a program that's been successful and really just try to keep it going."

Hodge's teams don't look much different from Foy's, other than the Dragons play a little faster now and they don't have quite as much bulk.

"Playing for him and working for him, philosophically, we have lot of similarities," Hodge said. "We try to hang our hat on tough, hard-nosed defense and being very physical. And playing unselfish on the offensive end of the floor. Just trying to be the aggressors at all times. The only difference is we may like to push the ball a little more than he did."

Paris plays Southeastern Illinois (27-6) in the first round of the NJCAA Tournament at noon Tuesday at the famous Hutchinson Sports Arena. Both teams were ranked just outside the top 20 in the final regular-season national poll Feb. 26.

"They are very similar to us," said Hodge, whose team started the season 19-0 and ranked as high as No. 4 before losing four of their next seven games. "They really get after it on the defensive end and they are a very good rebounding team (with) guards that can make shots."

At regionals, second-seeded Paris defeated Blinn by 11, San Jacinto by 13 and fifth-seeded Navarro by one.

"I thought we played definitely three of our best five games of the year," Hodge said. "I won't say it was absolutely the three best. We defended pretty well all tournament long and we were able to catch a couple of breaks, which you have to do to win any tournament."

Defense ruled the championship game. Paris shot 37.7 percent from the field and Navarro failed to break 30 percent. Hodge said the poor shooting may have had something to do with playing three games in three days.

"Even more than that, I thought both teams played excellent defense and there just wasn't a ton of open looks," Hodge said. "I thought both teams did a good job of getting back in transition and contesting every shot."

East Texas Connection

Quitman's Courtney Waters, a 6-2 sophomore guard, is a starter for the Dragons. Counted on more for his defense, Waters averaged 4.4 points per game during the regular season. He attempted only one shot in the regional final and had three defensive rebounds.

"Courtney has been unbelievable in the sense he's one of those kids that you know exactly what you are getting on a daily basis," Hodge said. "He's done a great job representing our program not only on the floor but off the floor. Courtney is just a solid basketball player. He's a very good defender on and off the ball and he does a good job taking care of the ball."

Division I Pipeline

From low to high, the major college basketball programs in the country continue to fill their rosters with junior college talent from Region XIV. Exhaustive research, with an assist from Montfort, turned up 79 former Region XIV players on NCAA Division I men's basketball rosters for 2007-08.

Panola is the leader with 12 players, highlighted by Alabama's Mykal Riley. Lee College is next with nine, led by Indiana's Mike White. Tyler, Paris, San Jacinto and Angelina are next with seven. Several of the former Juco standouts will be participating in the upcoming NCAA and NIT tournaments.