Joel Wright made two free throws with two seconds left in overtime to give Texas State a 67-66 win over South Alabama, after the Jaguars rallied from a five-point deficit in the final seconds of regulation to force the extra period.
Late Rally Forces Overtime
South Alabama trailed by five with 36.7 seconds left in regulation. Sophomore Barrington Stevens III tied the game with a 3-pointer with less than 19 seconds remaining. Stevens had a chance to win it in regulation, but his layup attempt did not fall.
Free Throws Decide Overtime
Neither team led by more than two points in overtime, and the final six points of the game came at the free throw line. Augustine Rubit’s 3-pointer with under 42 seconds left put South Alabama ahead 64-63.
Wright answered with two free throws to give the Bobcats a 65-64 lead. Mychal Ammons was fouled on the Jaguars’ next possession and made both shots for a 66-65 lead.
After a Texas State timeout, the Bobcats got the ball to Wright, who was fouled by Ammons while driving the baseline with two seconds left. Wright made both free throws, and Ammons fouled out on the play.
Graves: Too Many Lapses
“We have good kids in that locker room and they care,” first-year head coach Matthew Graves said. “We just need to understand that you have to play a full 40 minutes, and in this case a full 45, and we just had too many lapses tonight where we didn’t have enough of a sense of urgency from start to finish.”
Graves said shot selection late in the first half hurt the Jaguars. “We took three bad shots in a row and didn’t work the basketball,” he said. “In the second half, we showed some resolve. We were down five with 30 seconds to go and Barrington made a really nice play and scored. In overtime, it went back and forth. We did some nice things and it came down to that last play.”
Leaders
Rubit finished with 22 points and seven rebounds, moving into 12th place on the Sun Belt Conference’s career scoring list. Ammons had 15 points and 13 rebounds for his second straight double-double, the first time he has posted double-doubles in back-to-back games since the start of the 2012-13 season. No other Jaguar reached double figures.
Reid Koenen led Texas State with 26 points, and Wright added 21 points and eight rebounds. Only four other Bobcats scored, none with more than six points.
Tournament Race
South Alabama fell to 8-18 overall and 2-11 in the Sun Belt. With five games left, the Jaguars are two games out of the eighth and final spot in the Sun Belt Conference Tournament.
South Alabama hosts Troy on Saturday at 7:05 p.m. at the Mitchell Center and will face Texas State again in a little under two weeks.
