INDIANA, Pa. — Fairmont State’s men’s basketball team came oh so close to pulling off a shocker here Saturday evening against Indiana (Pa.) University, the nation’s No. 2 team, in the opening round of the NCAA Division II Atlantic Regional at the Crimson Hawks’ Memorial Field House.
The eighth-seeded Falcons took the top-seeded Crimson Hawks to the wire before falling 71-67.
“We felt very fortunate as a team and as a program to come out of that with a victory,” said IUP head coach Joe Lombardi. “Fairmont was up to the task tonight and they battled back after we had them down double-digits early in the first half.
“We just got a few big stops at the end and were able to execute and get ourselves some big buckets to come out of this one on top.”
The win improved the Crimson Hawks to 29-2 on the year and allowed them to tie the IUP school record for victories in a single season. Indiana will now advance to tonight’s second round and face fourth-seeded West Virginia State (29-3) at Memorial Field House at 7 p.m.. The Yellow Jackets eliminated fifth-seeded East Stroudsburg in Saturday’s first game, 89-79.
FSU, which finished the season 22-8, held a 65-63 lead over IUP with 1:29 remaining on a big follow-up basket by Terrence Green. Green got the basket and was fouled on it, but couldn’t convert on the three-point play. That would prove costly to FSU because seconds later at the other end IUP’s Julian Sanders drained only his second 3-pointer of the contest, but it gave his team the lead for good at 66-65 with 1:13 left to play.
“That shot was huge,” said IUP’s Thomas Young. “When we broke the huddle I knew he (Sanders) wanted the ball. Before the play developed I saw Akida (McLain) was open down inside, but I knew Julian wanted the ball, I got it to him and he made the crucial shot. He certainly didn’t disappoint me.”
Sanders agrees.
“I did call for it,” said Sanders, who was just 2-of-7 in the game from 3-point range. “I missed my first five threes tonight, but I always keep thinking I’ve got to move on to the next play. I got my feet set on that one and knocked it down.”
Fairmont had two opportunities to re-take the lead, but a pair of controversial foul calls on the Falcons’ Chris Talley gave the ball back to IUP. First, Talley was called for an illegal screen with 58 seconds left and then he was called for charging with 31 seconds remaining.
“I’m really pleased with our effort because I thought we battled them all night long,” said FSU head coach Tim Murphy. “I thought we had the momentum until the two calls happened.
“Still, I’m really proud of our guys. People thought we were going to walk in here and lay down tonight and be intimidated because we were playing the second-ranked team in the country, but our guys weren’t. They battled all night long. When your last game comes down to a game like this and a effort like we gave you walk away with a good feeling in your gut because of that. We obviously hate the fact that we lost, but we certainly showed we could play with them right until the end.”
FSU actually had a chance to tie the game at 70, but true freshman Isaac Thornton’s 3-point field goal from the corner was short, hit the side of the rim and IUP’s Darryl Webb cleared the rebound and was fouled. He then made one-of-two free throws to seal the victory for the Crimson Hawks with 1.5 seconds left.
Fairmont State fell behind 22-9 with 8:06 left in the first half, but used a 21-10 run to close the first 20 minutes to make it 32-30 at the break. FSU would have led at the break, but IUP’s Ashton Smith launched a three-quarter-court 3-pointer at the buzzer that swished the nets to give his squad a two-point advantage.
In the second half, neither team enjoyed larger than a six-point lead in the contest which featured nine ties and 10 lead changes.
Senior Dan Bruner led Fairmont State with 16 points and six rebounds. His 16 points allowed him to finish his Falcon career with 1,009 points. He becomes only the 42nd player in FSU history to score 1,000 points in his career and currently ranks 41st in school history in career scoring.
“A lot of people probably thought we were going to come in here and lay down tonight and just be happy that we made the NCAA Tournament, but we had other thoughts about that,” said Bruner. “We wanted to come here and win. They made some plays on us early to get up on us and that got us out of our zone and after that we matched up with them pretty well and played pretty even the rest of the way.”
The Falcons also got 14 points and six rebounds off the bench from junior center Mike Henderson, 13 points from Talley, 11 points and nine rebounds from Green and 11 points and five boards from Thornton.
IUP was led by Young’s game-high 17 points, 12 of which came in the second half. The Crimson Hawks also got 15 points from Smith and 11 points and a game-high 14 rebounds from Webb.
In the other half of the Atlantic Regional bracket in West Liberty Saturday evening, the second-seeded Hilltoppers eliminated seventh-seeded Alderson-Broaddus, 79-66, and third-seeded Saint Augustine defeated sixth-seeded Kutztown, 70-54.
