With 4.6 seconds to play and The Master's leading 75-74,
Kendall Moore was at the line.
He purposely clanked the ball off the rim, forcing a scramble for the ball.
All the while the clock was ticking down.
Somehow the ball shot out toward center court, where Arizona Christian's Lorenzo Wright collected it, turned, and launched a shot from 40 feet away.
There was 0.4 seconds on the clock when the ball left his hands.
Swish.
The capacity crowd's emotions flipped from pure elation to disbelief in the time it took the ball to drop through the threads.
Heartbreak!
An improbable finish to an incredible game as the Firestorm beat the Mustangs 77-75 to win the GSAC Men's Basketball Tournament championship Tuesday night in The MacArthur Center.
"Yes, definitely a heartbreaker," said TMU Head Coach Kelvin Starr. "Lorenzo hit a big shot and it was a tough shot regardless of how it got to him. As a coach, you think back through every play of the game and think, 'What could we have done better?' It just hurts. I feel bad for our guys. One locker room is going to hurt and one is going to experience pure joy. That's sports.
"It has to hurt," Coach Starr continued. "If it doesn't hurt it shows you don't care. So I'm glad it hurts in that sense. But we have to get over it fast and realize we are still a national tournament team. We've got to regroup quickly and play at home again."
Despite the outcome of the game, The Master's learned earlier this week they will be hosting the Opening Rounds of the NAIA Men's Basketball National Tournament on March 14 & 15.
The Master's jumped out quickly, going on an 11-0 run to open the game. ACU didn't get on the board until 6:17 had passed in the game. And while the Firestorm got to within four points in the next five minutes, TMU would pull away, catching threes from
Deondre Earley and
Deaken Stangl.
The Mustangs took a 39-34 lead into the locker room at the half.
That lead stayed under five points for the first 8:28 of the second half, when ACU's Ese Onakpoma's layup gave the Firestorm their first lead of the game.
But that lead didn't last. Good free throws from
Miles Mendes and a Stangl layup put The Master's back on top.
The lead would switch back and forth and was tied several times, bringing us to the moment that started with 4.6 seconds on the clock.
"It was a classic game, we just came out on the wrong end of it," Coach Starr said. "You do this long enough you're going to be on the wrong end of this at some point. It's a game of inches sometimes. But I'm proud of my team. They really competed tonight. We were really good those last three or four minutes, but... it hurts."
Stangl had a career-high 20 points to lead the Mustangs in scoring, followed by
Kaleb Lowery's 14 and Moore's 12.
Miles Mendes had a career-high 12 rebounds to lead the team.
"I would say hands down this is the best game [
Miles Mendes has] had since he's been here," Coach Starr said. "And I thought Deaken played really well too. Hopefully they can carry that on to nationals."
The Mustangs will have a week-and-a-half before the start of the NAIA national tournament. TMU is hoping to return to Kansas City, the final site for the national championship. Last year The Master's got knocked out in the Round of 16 in the final seconds by the eventual champion Freed-Hardeman.
Four teams, including The Master's, will play in The McArthur Center in the first round of the NAIA national tournament. Those two games will be played at 5 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. March 15th's second round will tip-off at 6 p.m.
