There is no team in the Atlantic Sun that plays quite like the Eastern Kentucky Colonels. Under A.W. Hamilton — now entering his ninth season in Richmond — EKU has built one of the most distinctive identities in mid-major basketball: relentless pace, suffocating pressure, and a three-point attack that comes in waves. The 2025-26 season was a down year by the program's recent standards at 11-21 overall and 7-11 in ASUN play, but anyone who has watched the Hamilton era knows better than to confuse a reset with a retreat.
The arc tells the real story. In 2022-23, the Colonels went 23-14 and stormed all the way to the CBI championship game, announcing themselves as a national mid-major factor. The next year they went 17-14 and 12-4 in the league, claiming the ASUN regular-season crown. Then 18-14 and 12-6 in 2024-25 — three straight seasons of genuine contention. The 2025-26 stumble was the bill coming due for roster turnover in the portal era, not a crack in the foundation.
Hamilton's system is the star, and it's not subtle. The Colonels launch threes at a volume that would make an NBA analytics department blush — in January 2026, the team was averaging nearly 14 made three-pointers per game, among the national leaders — and they pair it with a pressing, trapping defense designed to turn every game into a track meet. When the shots fall, EKU can beat anybody in the league by twenty. When they don't, well, that's the deal you sign. Nobody in Richmond wants it any other way.
The 2025-26 roster was young and learning on the fly. Turner Buttry emerged as a backcourt cornerstone, Montavious Myrick brought physicality inside, and Jackson Holt, Austin Ball, Jalen Cooper and Juan Cranford all took turns carrying the scoring load. Tyler Jackson's performance in the ASUN Tournament against Stetson — battling in a season-ending loss in March — was a snapshot of a group that never stopped competing even when the record turned against them.
Hamilton himself is one of the more accomplished coaches in the mid-major ranks. His tenure includes the program's move from the Ohio Valley to the ASUN in 2021, a CBI runner-up finish and an ASUN regular-season crown. He has surrounded himself with continuity — associate head coach Steve Lepore has been with him every step of the way — and the program's culture of pace and pressure is now institutional, not personal.
Home is Baptist Health Arena in Richmond, Kentucky, a 4,692-seat building that turns into a cauldron when the Colonels get rolling. The maroon-and-white faithful have seen the full Hamilton experience: the 122-point explosions, the furious comebacks, the nights when the threes rain and the press suffocates. It's never boring. That's the point.
The program's history gives the current era its weight. Eastern Kentucky owns six conference tournament titles and eight NCAA Tournament appearances. The last dance came in 2014, when the Colonels won the OVC tournament under Jeff Neubauer and took a 15 seed into the bracket. The move to the ASUN in 2021 was about ambition — a growing league, a bigger stage, and a program that believes it belongs in March.
The ASUN itself has become one of the country's most entertaining mid-major leagues. Lipscomb, North Alabama, Florida Gulf Coast, Jacksonville and Stetson all recruit and play like they expect to win the league, and the annual tournament is a war of styles. For EKU, the math is simple: in a one-bid league, everything comes down to three days in March, and no team in the conference is scarier in a single-elimination setting than a Hamilton squad catching fire from deep.
The 2026-27 season is about the bounce-back. Hamilton's ninth year brings a roster with a year of hard lessons baked in, a system that doesn't change, and a coach who has never had back-to-back losing seasons at EKU. The Colonels don't rebuild — they reload the clip and keep shooting. The ASUN has been warned before. It never seems to listen.
What defines Eastern Kentucky is the audacity: the pace, the press, the threes, the refusal to play anyone else's game. In an era of college basketball homogenization, the Colonels are gloriously, stubbornly themselves. Richmond, Kentucky, has seen eight NCAA trips and a dozen title banners. The ninth season of the Hamilton era starts with the same belief as the first: run them off the floor, and let March sort out the rest.
The 2025-26 season's final chapter came in March at the ASUN Tournament, where the Colonels ran into a red-hot Stetson squad and bowed out — the ekusports.com headline said it plainly: the Colonels couldn't overcome the Hatters' torrid start. It was a fitting microcosm of the year: EKU competed, EKU shot it, but the margin for error in a young roster's season proved thin. The response in Richmond was not panic but patience. Hamilton has earned that — the CBI runner-up finish, the regular-season crown, and three straight winning seasons before this one are the receipts. Programs with an identity this strong don't stay down long, and the Colonels' identity is as strong as any in the league.