As the basketball left Rob Reed's hand with less than a second left in the second overtime Saturday between Concord and No. 1 West Liberty, the Mountain Lions senior guard said it felt as good as an off-balance, one-handed heave between two defenders could.
"I knew if I got it off the backboard, it would have a chance," Reed said. "I knew a straight-line drive wouldn't go in. If I could play the glass, it might go in."
The ball kissed off the backboard and fell through the net, breaking the tie, giving Reed a game-high 34 points and sending Concord to the Mountain East Conference championship game with a 92-90 win over the Hilltoppers. The Mountain Lions (21-9) will face the winner of Saturday night's Wheeling Jesuit-Notre Dame College semifinal at 3:30 p.m. Sunday.
It was the second time this season Concord had beaten a West Liberty team that was ranked No. 1 in the country. The Mountain Lions handed WLU (27-3) its first loss of the year, 108-93, in Athens on Jan. 8.
The difficulty level of Saturday's victory was much higher, taking two extra periods and needing a last-second Reed bank shot between MEC freshman of the year David Dennis and MEC player of the year Seger Bonifant to clinch it.
"I don't know of there has been a better game in the Mountain East tournament," Concord coach Kent McBride said. "I would put that up against any of them."
It looked like Concord would be able to put the game away in regulation. When Terry Hopewell hit a layup with 3:59 left in the second half, the Mountain Lions took a 73-61 lead. But those were the last points CU would score in the half. West Liberty closed the half on a 12-0 run on a pair of 3-pointers each from Dennis and Mike Lamberti, Lamberti's second 3 with 20 seconds left sending the game to overtime.
Lamberti forced a second overtime on a pair of free throws with 39 seconds left in the first overtime, tying the game at 80. Bonifant, who led the Hilltoppers with 33 points, nearly forced a third overtime, but his shot with four-tenths of a second left missed the mark.
"Seger's a really smart player," West Liberty coach Jim Crutchfield said. "And I know what was going through his mind was, 'Do I have time to catch this or do I catch it and let it go?' He tried to catch it and shoot in the air. And I'll tell you this, I've been around Seger for four years, if it was .7 seconds and he had time catch and come down, it was going in."
Part of West Liberty's problem Saturday was that the shots the Hilltoppers took weren't falling as much as normal. WLU entered the game shooting 50.5 percent from the floor and 42 percent from 3-point range. Over 50 minutes Saturday, West Liberty shot 34.5 percent from the floor (30 for 87) and 27.3 percent from 3-point range (12 for 44).
"Defense wins," McBride said. "And to hold a West Liberty team to 34 percent shooting? These guys did it. I didn't contest one shot. I didn't pull down one rebound. You've got to be proud of the two defensive efforts we've had in two days."
Crutchfield said Concord was doubling down in the low post and leaving shooters open on the outside. They couldn't capitalize, making just 4 of 20 3-pointers in the first half and 1 of 6 in overtime.
"We got pretty good looks at it, and it just didn't go in. It was a struggle, but games like these are going to be struggles."
McBride also was proud of his team's refusal to fold as West Liberty fought back to tie the game in regulation, the first overtime and second overtime. It would be easy for the fourth-seed in the tournament to fizzle out as the nation's No. 1 team started a comeback, but McBride tried to keep Concord's confidence high.
"When they forced the first overtime, I looked at the guys and said, 'Guys, we've played West Liberty for about 120 minutes [this season] and we've led for about 90. So don't walk in here thinking we're lucky to be here.' "
Hopewell scored 16 points and pulled down 19 rebounds, while Aaron Miller scored 14 points with nine boards. Devin Hoehn scored 16 points for West Liberty, and Zac Grossenbacher pulled down a tournament-record 22 rebounds.
Now West Liberty will wait to see where it ends up in the NCAA Division II regional tournament. In three years of the Mountain East Conference tournament, the Hilltoppers have played for the title just once (in 2014, losing to the University of Charleston) and falling in the semifinals each of the last two years.
Concord gets the chance to play for its first MEC tournament crown after failing to win a tournament game in either of the previous two seasons. It was far from easy, but McBride said it has been burned into his and his players' memories.
"That was a battle and that's a game that this side will remember forever," he said, "and fortunately, it gets us one more."