Box Score SHAWNEE, Okla. – Noble Complex has not been kind to Wayland over the years, and Thursday night's top-25 showdown between the No. 9 Pioneers and No. 20 Oklahoma Baptist was no different. The Pioneers, looking for their first win at OBU since 2005, tied the game with six seconds left, but the Bison made a free throw with two clicks remaining to give the home team an 84-83 win.
Oklahoma Baptist (16-5, 5-4) looked to have finally corralled the Pioneers in the final minutes of the game after Wayland (16-4, 5-4) fell behind 78-68 with just four minutes and 46 seconds remaining in the knock-down, drag-out battle between the two squads. The Pioneers showed their character with their backs against the wall, however, and made every play they needed to down the stretch to put themselves back in the game.
"What happened in the last five minutes of the game will define our season," head coach
Matt Garnett said. "These guys have shown lot of good qualities so far this year, but that was a piece of our team that we haven't seen so far. We haven't shown that kind of poise and resiliency. (The last five minutes) will be a huge positive for us if we will honor what happened during that time."
What happened in the final minutes of the game was that the Pioneers came up with four defensive stops out of six OBU possessions, and WBU was 6-for-7 from the field and converted points in each of its final possessions.
Garnett called a timeout with 4:46 left then
Robert Waters made a three pointer 15 seconds later to cut the Bison's lead to seven. Ty Allen made a layup on the other end, but
Bunja Yaboe hauled in a big offensive rebound and sank a pair of free throws to bring the spread back to seven.
Royal Crouch made a layup with 2:56 left and
Kendall Durant made a jumper after an OBU turnover to bring Wayland within three.
Oklahoma Baptist called a time out after Durant's jumper, but the Pioneers came up with another defensive stop and
Ta'Quan McDew laid one in to bring WBU within one, 80-79, with a minute and a half remaining in the game.
Byron Miller nailed a clutch three pointer to give the Bison a little breathing room with 57 seconds left. Wayland called a timeout after the three, and Yaboe slammed home a dunk with 33 seconds left to bring the Pioneers within a single basket, 83-81.
Waters fouled Cale Jackson to stop the clock at 22 seconds, and after Jackson missed the front end of a one-and-one, Crouch drained a jumper to tie the game, 83 all, with ten seconds remaining.
What happened next is something the Pioneers will soon want to forget.
D.J. Hervy, the Bison point guard, pushed the ball up court after an OBU timeout with only a few seconds to play. Crouch, who was guarding another member of the Bison squad, followed his man who started running across the court. As he was tailing his man, Crouch and Hervy's paths crossed and Crouch incidentally collided with the point guard and the referees were forced to call a foul.
Hervy made the first free throw to avoided overtime with the red-hot Pioneers and gave the Bison an 84-83 win.
"No one saw that coming," Garnett said. "Royal was just following his man and it was just a real fluke situation. "
No one likes to lose Garnett added, but he was very positive about what he saw from his team Thursday night.
"I thought tonight was a really good college basketball game," he said. "Both teams played at a pretty high level, and there were a lot of big plays on both ends of the court.
"Going on road to OBU and coming off disappointing loss on Monday, I was really pleased with how we played, and especially pleased with the way we made that come back with five minutes to go. I told the guys that we played better in this game than we had in several of our wins. That's what we try and do; evaluate performance and not just the result."
The Pioneers were hoping to avenge another painful loss from the last time the two teams met. In the Sooner Athletic Conference Championship game last year, OBU snuck
out with a win, claiming the conference title with a 70-69 nail-biter over the Pioneers. Wayland's last win over OBU on the road came on Feb. 5, 2005 when the Pioneers defeated the Bison, 91-86.
Thursday's loss featured 25 lead changes and six ties, with neither team leading by more than 10. Wayland shot a lights-out, 60.7-percent from the floor, compared to 56.7-percent from OBU, but the Pioneers turned the ball over 14 times while the Bison had only eight turnovers.
Johnson led all scorers with 22 points, while Yaboe led the Pioneers with 21 points and six rebounds. McDew (14), Waters (13) and
Plamen Hristov (10) were also in double figures for the Pioneers.
Hervy had 11 assists for the Bison, and was a point away from a double-double. Waters led WBU with five assists.
The loss marks the first time Wayland has dropped back-to-back games this season, but Garnett is still very optimistic moving forward after seeing the effort the Pioneers gave Thursday.
"What's tested in these moments is how much faith you have in each other and how much you trust what you're doing," he said. "We talk about unshakeable faith and trust in each other all the time.
"This team found something out about themselves tonight, and that will be something that carries through this season and they will have success because of what they showed tonight."
Wayland looks to rebound Saturday when it takes on Science and Arts of Oklahoma (4-12, 3-6) at 3 p.m. in Chickasha. The Pioneers defeated the Drovers, 83-68, on Jan. 17.
"We said in locker room that now it's all about USAO and trying to play at a high level," Garnett said. We played at a high level tonight and now we have to get better. We need to be ready to compete against a good USAO team that has proven is very good at home this year."
