INDIANA, Pa. — The consensus opinion coming out of second-ranked and top-seeded Indiana (Pa.) University’s locker room following the Crimson Hawks’ nail-biting 71-67 victory over eighth-seeded Fairmont State here Saturday evening at Memorial Field House in the opening round of the NCAA Division II Men’s Atlantic Regional was that the host team survived despite a sub-par performance.
“We were ready for tonight, but we just came out a little flat,” said IUP standout senior guard Thomas Young, who led the Crimson Hawks with 17 points, 12 of which came in the second half. “There’s no excuse for why we came out flat, but we definitely came out flat. I was a big part of it. I didn’t play with as much passion as I should have tonight.”
Fourth-year IUP coach Joe Lombardi, meanwhile, felt his team was a bit rusty after a six-day layoff.
“We had played 10 games in 22 days and when you do that you kind of get into a rhythm with practice and playing and practice and playing and I was concerned coming in that our six-day layoff would create some rust.
“I told the guys don’t drink the juice of everyone telling you how great you are. I don’t think they did, but I think it seeped in one way or another and that can be very dangerous. But this is a first-time experience for these young men being ranked second in the country and being the first seed. I also knew if the game got close being the heavy favorite could work against us with added pressure. I don’t know how much of an impact that had, but we were able to work through that.”
All of those things may indeed have been factors in the 29-2 Crimson Hawks’ performance, but the fact of the matter is Fairmont State, a team which hadn’t played a game in eight days and was the eighth-seed in the region, took the nation’s No. 2 team to the wire despite turning in a less-than-spectacular overall performance themselves.
“We played hard and I thought we gave great effort tonight, but it wasn’t like we played a great game or one of our best games,” said FSU coach Tim Murphy. “I mean we played well, but we missed some crucial shots and we missed a couple of chances to convert some opportunities late. It also ticks me off what happened to us in the final minute.”
Trailing 66-65 in the game's final 58 seconds, FSU was twice called for controversial offensive fouls which gave the ball back to the Crimson Hawks.
Both of those calls involved Falcon junior guard Chris Talley. With 58 seconds left Talley was called for an illegal screen on a dribble hand-off play to teammate Isaac Thornton. Then with 31 seconds left, Talley was called for a charge on a drive to the basket when his arm was pulled down, causing him to lose the ball before he ever got to the rim.
After the second foul, Young hit a pair of free throws on a one-and-one situation for IUP to make it 68-65. Then at the other end, Thornton was fouled on a shot that bounced all around the rim and fell off. He calmly sank both free throws to make it 68-67 with 18 seconds left, but Indiana’s Kevin Stewart, an 85 percent free throw shooter, was fouled with 12 seconds remaining and canned both free throws to push the margin back to three.
On Fairmont’s final possession, Thornton, the freshman of the year in the West Virginia Conference, got a wide open look from the corner on a 3-pointer but his shot was short and hit the side of the rim.
“He got a pretty good look,” said Murphy of Thornton’s potential game-tying shot. “That’s really, to be honest with you, not exactly how we drew it up. When your original play breaks down in a situation like that you’ve got to rely on your players to make a play. We still got it back to him. He’s a freshman, but he’s a good freshman. He was the freshman of the year in our league and he’s not afraid to take that shot. It was a clean look, but it was just a little short. If it goes in we would’ve played some more.”
Fairmont, which was making its first national tournament appearance in 10 years, finished the season with a 22-8 overall record. The appearance was the fifth for FSU in the NCAA D-II Tournament and Saturday’s loss made it the third time that IUP has eliminated the Falcons. The Crimson Hawks’ average margin of victory in those three regional tournament games is by a mere 3.7 points.
