NJCAA all-star game spotlights Martin, Delgado and 26 elite selections

Jaiden Martin and Alejandro Delgado sat at the center of the 16th annual NJCAA Men’s Basketball Coaches Association All-Star Game, a 26-player field that read like a postseason award sheet come to life. Twenty-three of the selections were NJCAA All-Americans, and nine were first-team picks, leaving almost no gap between the all-star roster and the season’s elite tier.

The NABC presented the game at Cox Pavilion on the UNLV campus in Las Vegas on May 9, with free admission and a livestream on YouTube. The roster stretched across all three NJCAA divisions, but the strongest pull came from the same players who already owned the year’s biggest hardware: Martin was Division II Player of the Year, and Delgado took Division III Player of the Year while also landing on the first team.

Martin powered Parkland to its first national championship since 1986 and closed the title game with 34 points, including 21 after halftime, plus eight rebounds. Over the season he averaged 21.6 points, 4.9 rebounds and 3 assists per game, passed 1,000 points across two seasons and helped Parkland finish with 62 wins in that span. He also earned all-tournament and all-region first-team recognition, the kind of all-court résumé that turns a title run into a one-man headline.

Delgado did the same for Northern Essex, only with a different shape: 17.9 points, 11.6 rebounds, 3.3 assists and 1.8 steals per game, plus 26 double-doubles in 35 games. He led the Knights to their first national championship in school history, and NECC coach Darren Stratton entered the event with 384 career wins after guiding the team to 33 victories and a 20-game winning streak to close the season. For Northern Essex, the all-star stage carried extra weight because it was the first time the program had been represented by either a player or a coach.

Division I supplied its own clear-cut names. Walters State guard Da’Mori Lytch, the TCCAA Player of the Year, averaged 12.3 points and 6.6 rebounds, shot 66 percent from the field and blocked 30 shots, becoming the program’s first all-star invite since Michael Houge in 2023. Gulf Coast State guard Trent Lincoln added 19.4 points and 6.1 assists per game while shooting 43.3 percent, and he opened the year with a 33-point game. Arizona Western also stayed in the mix, with Marsai Mason giving the Matadors representation for a third straight year.

The rest of the list filled in the season’s personality: Tavian Cruse won the Scott Schumacher Sportsmanship Award, Phillip Tillman earned the Todd Franklin Sportsmanship Award, Josiah McDonald and Amonti Greene took the Francis Flax and Chris DePew Small Man Awards, and Deven Bates and Chioke Marshall were named MVPs. The JCBCA’s 2025-26 awards page also listed Terry Copeland of Howard, Martin and Delgado as the division player-of-the-year winners, which is why this all-star group looked less like a showcase and more like the league’s final scouting report on itself.