Box Score CHICKASHA, Okla. – Three days after winning a double-overtime thriller against Science and Arts of Oklahoma, Wayland Baptist dropped an edge-of-your-seat overtime game to USAO in the Sooner Athletic Conference Tournament quarterfinals here Tuesday night, 100-99.
"Our guys played hard. We put ourselves in position to win the game on more than one occasion," Wayland coach
Ty Harrelson said.
This one wasn't without controversy…on numerous fronts.
With the score tied, USAO's Julius Foster made the last of two free throws with less than a second left after Wayland's
Chris Doerue was called for a foul on a putback attempt. The clock had gone to zeroes, but officials put 4/10ths of a second back on for Foster to hit the game-winning foul shots.
Harrelson felt the foul came after the final buzzer. No replay was available.
"We had talked during the timeout that in situations like that it's not always the first shot that beats you but the putback," Harrelson said. "I feel like we defended it well and forced them to take a pretty bad shot."
Needing a miracle to win, the Pioneers – with two of their top scorers in all-conference first-teamer
Maurice Redmond and Joshua Throns on the bench with five fouls, along with post
Tyrone Davis – appeared to have gotten one when a Drover plowed over Wayland's
Ruben Lopez on the inbounds play. But no foul was called, and time likely ran out on the Pioneers' entertaining but at-times hard-luck season.
"You let the players decide the game. Unfortunately, that was not the case tonight," Harrelson said. "This is tough to swallow. I felt like we out-played them today."
The coach said he hopes the two-time defending SAC Tournament champion Pioneers can find a way into the NAIA National Championships.
"I hope it's not the end of our season. I hope we can get an at-large bid, even if we're the last team in the tournament," Harrelson said. "I hope everybody can see what happened tonight and take that into consideration. We just have to hope votes go our way."
Wayland (18-13) got 24 points from freshman guard
J.J. Culver, 20 from Throns and 17 apiece from Redmond and
Austin Mansour, who also pulled down 10 rebounds.
"We're so young," Harrelson said. "Austin and J.J. are both freshmen, and both played a great game."
The Pioneers nailed 17-of-29 (61 percent) from 3-point range, with Throns hitting 6-of-12, but Wayland was outscored by 12 at the foul line where USAO hit 30-of-45 attempts versus WBU's 18-of-24.
USAO (17-13), which moves on to face ninth-ranked Texas Wesleyan in the tournament semifinals in Oklahoma City, was paced by Taran Buie's 26 points, half of which came at the free throw line where he was 13-of-15. Foster and Imani Edwards put up 20 points apiece.
The Drovers turned the ball over just eight times compared to Wayland's 20 giveaways. The Pioneers held a 47-38 edge on the boards.
Wayland led by 10, 69-59, with 9:00 left in regulation. It was still a nine-point game at the 5:00 mark when the Drovers took advantage of numerous Pioneer turnovers, and Davis fouling out, to run off 10 straight points to take an 85-84 lead with 1:16 to go.
"We had a couple of unfortunate turnovers, and once we didn't have
Tyrone Davis inside it hurt us," Harrelson said. "Tyrone was solid for us defensively, and he was getting things going offensively. It was tough call on him for his fifth foul, and from that point on we had a tough time getting stops.
"We had a hard time stopping them once they got rolling."
A 3-pointer by Throns in front of the WBU bench gave the Pioneers an 87-86 lead with 24 seconds left, but Redmond's fifth foul on what Harrelson felt was a clean steal after a missed USAO layup put the Drovers' Brendan Chapman on the line for two free throws with three seconds left. Chapman missed the first, and after Culver couldn't get a last-second 3-pointer to go down, the teams were headed to their third overtime in two games.
The extra five minutes were tight all the way, with USAO leading most of the time. The Drovers were up 99-96 when
Julian Pesava, with 21 seconds left, banked in a 3-pointer from almost the exact spot as Throns' 3 late in regulation.
The wild last seconds of the game followed.
"I wish USAO good luck the rest of the tournament," Harrelson said. "We've had three good battles this year, and I always hope the team that beats us goes on and wins it; it makes us looks better."
Sooner Athletic Conference Tournament
Tuesday, Feb. 28 – Quarterfinals, At Campus Sites
Game 1: (1) Texas Wesleyan defeats (8) Mid-America Christian, 93-60
Game 2: (4) Science and Arts defeats (5) Wayland Baptist, 100-99 OT
Game 3: (3) Oklahoma City defeats (3) Southwestern Christian, 87-80
Game 4: (2) Southwestern Assemblies of God defeated John Brown, 76-66
At Abe Lemons Arena, Oklahoma City University
Friday, March 3 -- Semifinals
Game 5: Science and Arts (17-13) vs. Texas Wesleyan (24-6), 6 p.m.
Game 6: Oklahoma City (20-9) vs. Southwestern Assemblies of God (23-8) 8 p.m.
Saturday, March 4 Championship
Game 7: USAO/TWU winner vs. OCU/SAGU winner, 4 p.m.
