January 3, 2011

Bucs Best Bears on Last-Second Basket, 62-61

 

MACON, GA. – Mercer University's men's basketball team suffered its third gut-wrenching loss in the last two weeks, this time falling to East Tennessee State University, 62-61, in an Atlantic Sun Conference game at the University Center. The loss was the Bears' (3-11, 0-3 A-Sun) fourth in a row, while the Buccaneers (7-7, 2-1 A-Sun) won their third straight.

 

The first half could probably have made a good entry into Ripley's Believe It or Not. The fact that the Bears held a 27-25 advantage with their leading scorer (Jeff Smith) with no points and playing just four minutes - while its second-leading scorer (Brian Mills) was in foul trouble and scored just three points in 12 minutes on the floor - not many could fathom a Mercer lead.

 

That is, everyone except the Bears team, perhaps.

 

After Jeff Smith - who would finish the game scoreless - picked up back-to-back fouls with around 18:00 minutes left in the half, MU head coach Bob Hoffman inserted sophomore Chris Smith. The Dublin, Ga., native responded by draining a long three-pointer the first time he touched the ball to open the scoring and give MU a 3-0 lead.

 

In the first half, the Mercer bench did a creditable job of not only slowing down ETSU, but helping MU build a lead. The Bears reserves out-scored the Buccaneer bench by a 12-3 margin in the opening stanza, after the Mercer starters were held to 15 points as a group.

 

The Bears never trailed in the first half, building as much as a 10-point lead on a Mills layup with 11:12 in the first half. I would be Mills only field goal of the half.

 

ETSU would finally overtake Mercer at the 9:19 mark of the second period for its first lead. Justin Tubbs scored on a layup to make it 43-41 in favor of the Bucs. Tubbs, who had just five points on the night, got the rest of his evening's total on ETSU's next possession by draining a three to give the Bucs their biggest lead, 46-41.

 

But the Bears clawed back behind the efforts of Mills and freshman Langston Hall.

 

Mills scored eight of Mercer's next 10 points to knot the game at 51-51 with exactly five minutes left to play. A three-pointer by Hall – who was 4-for-5 from beyond the arc in the game - and a jumper from the right side by Mills gave the hosts a 56-51 margin at the 3:10 mark of the second half.

 

Mercer still held a four-point, 61-57, lead with just 49 seconds remaining on an offensive rebound and put-back hoop by Mills.

 

But that's when things took a sharp turn for the worse for the Bears.

 

After ETSU's Micah Williams (16 points) canned a trey to cut the deficit to 61-60 for the Bucs, MU's Moore was called for a charge with 11 seconds remaining on a game clock (which was just four seconds ahead of the shot clock) to turn the ball over. ETSU's Adam Sollazzo drove the right side and got a layup with 3.7 seconds on the clock and the Buccaneers now up 62-61.

 

Mercer tried to inbound the ball and it was slapped out by ETSU. Now, with just 2.9 seconds left, the ball was inbounded to Hall. Hall took one dribble and launched a shot from just inside midcourt. The ball hit the front of the rim, caromed upwards, came back down on the heal of the iron and bounced up one more time before glancing off the left side of the rim on its way down and falling aside with the Bears' hopes for the win.

 

Mills' 18 points led the MU team and was his seventh-consecutive game with double-digit scoring. Mills hit 6-of-11 from the field and also had a team-high eight rebounds and a block.

 

Hall finished with 13 points and Moore 12 to round out Mercer's leading scorers. Moore had seven rebounds and two blocks, as well.

 

ETSU's Mike Smith led all scorers with 19 points before fouling out with 2:43 left to play.

 

"We played really good (in the first half) and had a good spell at the start of the second half again," said Hoffman. "We had a lot of good stuff happening.

 

"(The loss) was unfortunate for our guys. They fought hard, but we just couldn't get it done"

 

 

Mercer will next be in action on Wednesday (Jan. 5) at 7:30 p.m. versus USC-Upstate. The game is the second half of a women's-men's doubleheader (with the women starting at 5 p.m.).