The University of Charleston men's basketball team held No. 5 Fairmont State, one of the most prolific 3-point shooting teams in the Mountain East Conference, without a made 3 for 19 minutes and 56 seconds of Sunday's second half.
The Golden Eagles just needed to hold off the Falcons for those final four ticks.
Senior Jamel Morris hit a deep 3-pointer with four seconds to go to give Fairmont State the lead to stay and allowed the Falcons to escape with a 66-65 win at the Civic Center.
For UC (6-7, 3-4 MEC) it was another case of a standout defensive performance marred by offensive struggles. Charleston shot just 41.7 percent (20 of 48) from the floor and just 18.2 percent (2 of 11) from 3.
"When you lose a one-point game, you just relive every play," UC coach Dwaine Osborne said. "There were just a couple of point-blank layups and dunks that we missed. Any little breakdown you have, every possession matters."
Charleston led the Falcons (12-1, 6-1) by as many as nine in the second half. A free throw by Jaylen Hinton with 11:54 remaining put UC ahead 49-40. But Fairmont State was able to climb back into the game on the force of forward Matt Bingaya, who scored 15 of his game-high 24 points in the game's final 9:24.
Bingaya, a Southern Mississippi transfer, had a chance to tie the game with seven seconds left, but his layup attempt missed the mark. The ball bounced out of bounds and stayed in FSU's possession, setting the Falcons up for the winning play. The inbounds pass sailed to Morris, who buried his third of he game for the win.
"You shoot the same way every time," Morris said, "and as soon as that left my hands, I was like, 'Oh, that's good.'"
That 3-pointer was just the fifth the Falcons made in 26 attempts Sunday, as Charleston's disciplined defense locked down another high-scoring nationally ranked team. UC held No. 1 West Liberty to 33 points below its season average on Wednesday. The Falcons averaged 95.5 points per game entering Sunday's contest.
"We just didn't enjoy basketball today," Fairmont State coach Jarrod Calhoun said. "When you put a guy in, you're begging them to get into a stance, you're begging them to guard, you're begging them to reverse the ball. It was a combination of bad play by us and Charleston really, really stepped it up. They were ready to go."
UC sprinted out to a 7-0 lead as Fairmont missed its first three shots and five of its first six. The Falcons pulled themselves back into the game thanks to them finally finding success from 3-point range. FSU hit four in the first half, including two deep 3s from Morris.
Fairmont State and UC went toe to toe for the rest of the half, trading the lead nine times and tying the game three times. The Falcons nearly took a three-point lead into halftime, but Tino DiTrapano scored on layup in traffic with nine seconds left in the half that cut FSU's lead to 31-30 at the buzzer.
The Falcons took a 34-32 lead a minute into the second half on a Morris layup, but the Golden Eagles ran off on a 17-6 run, culminating in the Hinton free throw for UC's largest lead.
"I thought a huge part of the game was when they were trapping and pressing, that was where we really hurt them," Osborne said. "I can't tell you how many buckets we scored when they'd trap us, we'd throw it out of the trap and a guy gets a layup or a dunk."
Cameron Dozier led UC with 15 points on 6-of-12 shooting, while Jevonte Hughes added 13 and Hinton scored 10, making 8 of 10 free throws. Morris, with 15, was the only other Falcon in double figures. Bingaya added a game-high 10 rebounds. The Falcons struggled at the free throw line, making just 9 of 18, with Bingaya hitting 7 of 13 from the line.
The Golden Eagles just finished a stretch against three of the MEC's top teams - Wheeling Jesuit, the top-ranked Hilltoppers and fifth-ranked Falcons - but went 0-3 in the process. Osborne saw the opportunities his team had in each of those games and now, with Shepherd coming to the Civic Center on Tuesday, he wants UC to make the most of those chances.
"I feel like we're close," Osborne said. "We just have to find a way to get over the hump."