st. Paul, minn. - after missing game-winners at the buzzer in regulation, overtime and double-overtime, concordia university (13-11, 10-7 nsic) took control in triple overtime to seal a 109-104 victory over southwest minnesota state (13-10, 8-9 nsic) in a pivotal game in the northern sun on saturday night at gangelhoff center. Concordia senior forward craig heiman (marshall, wis.) put the team on his back, scoring 20 of his career-high 36 points in the three overtime periods to lead a golden bear offense that saw six reach double-figures. box score
tied at 90 after two overtimes, heiman buried seven of eight free throws in the third ot and cu never trailed in the final period. In fact, they built a seemingly insurmountable nine point lead with just 44 seconds to play in the third ot, leading 103-94 after two of heiman's free throws went through. But smsu turned to freshman dynamo jordan miller, who saved the mustangs in the first ot with a game-tying three to knot the score at 80.
in the third ot, miller waited until smsu was in a nine point hole before drilling his first three of the period, cutting the lead to six with 31 seconds to play. After some free throws by each squad, miller struck again 11 seconds of game clock later, cutting the lead to three, 107-104 with 20 seconds to play. But smsu never got the ball back with a chance to tie as heiman and junior guard courtney tyler (eagan, minn.) each made one of two at the line while the defense held strong to the final buzzer.
heiman's 36 mark was the fifth time he has scored 30-plus in his career, extending his school record, and was only fitting that he tied his career high tonight as he was honored pre-game for becoming the school's scoring leader back in december in an overtime road win at minnesota-crookston, a 25 point effort that evening. He finished hitting 10-19 from the floor, 13-15 at the foul line and three of seven from long distance while adding six rebounds and four assists to just one turnover in a team-high 45 minutes.
minutes would undoubtedly play a factor as the mustangs had five guys log 41-plus minutes including kevin andrews' game-high 50. Andrews, along with scott roehl, both had career-highs with 26 points. Roehl also produced a game-high 16 rebounds. Miller, meanwhile, finished with 24 but was just 8-25 from the field and 6-18 from three-point distance.
the game was tight throughout, and had an intense, physical quality to the style of play. Neither team led by more than concordia's nine point lead in the third overtime, with smsu holding a large lead of eight early in the second half.
it was a brutal first half for concordia, but things could've been much worse. They went into the locker room trailing by only four points, 42-38, despite smsu holding a 20-0 margin in second chance scoring. The mustangs flat out dominated the glass, out-rebounding concordia 19-9 in the first 20 minutes, with a 9-1 edge on the offensive boards.
but concordia's hot three-point shooting, a staple of their success at gangelhoff center, kept them close. Freshman guard isaiah thomas (fridley, minn.) buried all three of his three-pointers and scored 11 points off the bench while cu hit five of their nine three's and shot 56.5% from the field to compensate for attempting 11 fewer shots than smsu. Combined, the two teams committed six turnovers, three apiece, in the first half in a surprisingly offensive and up-tempo paced half.
the highlight of the half was senior guard mike cunningham (minneapolis, minn.) scoring the team's first nine points of the game, including a three-pointer, making him the 15th member of the 1,000 point club at cu. He finished with 12 before fouling out with five rebounds after clocking 33 minutes. He was the first of five players in the game (three golden bears) to foul out in this marathon.
the first half was tight, with four ties and 10 lead changes as the teams traded jabs in the equivalent of the first few rounds of a heavyweight boxing match that went the distance. Smsu gained the upper hand, holding as large as a seven point lead while concordia never led by more than a point.
after being out rebounded by 10 in the first half, concordia returned to form the rest of the night by grabbing 26 rebounds to smsu's 23 and outscored them in second chance opportunities 8-3 for the next 35 minutes of basketball, turning the tables on a distinct first half advantage.
in the second half, smsu pushed the lead to eight, 48-40, just three minutes in by scoring six of the first eight points of the period. Back-to-back three's by heiman and tyler cut the deficit to two and the game was on. Tyler finished with 14 a night after scoring a career high 18, and added five assists (one turnover) and four rebounds.
the mustangs lead stayed between two and six for over nine minutes when a pair of heiman free throws (surprise-surprise!) narrowed the smsu lead to one, 62-61 with under seven to play.
cu finally tied the game for the first time since under three minutes to play in the first half when heiman delivered two more free throws with just over four minutes to play in regulation, knotting the score at 65.
it was heiman who put concordia on top, 67-65 with 3:25 to play, sinking a jumper.
the teams traded free throws before senior post thomas bassett (denison, iowa) hit a fastbreak layup on a long outlet from heiman to give concordia their largest lead at that point, 71-67, with 1:12 to go. Bassett made all four of his shots of the bench, finishing with 10 points, five rebounds and three assists off the bench.
another pair of smsu free throws, they converted 91.2% at the line hitting 31-34 followed by a steal and layup by andrews tied the game with 18 seconds left.
tyler took the shot clock down under five and made his move from 35 feet out, driving through the mustang defense and pulling up in traffic with his shot rimming out to send the game to overtime.
concordia jumped on smsu immediately, getting back up by four right away with a layup by sophomore post brent barz (johnston, iowa) and a jumper in the lane by heiman.
they extended the lead to six a few possessions later with another barz layup. Barz had six points and five rebounds in 13 overtime minutes, finally fouling out in the third ot. He finished with 16 points and five rebounds, hitting seven of his 10 shots from the field and both free throws.
leading by their largest margin, 79-73 with 1:43 to play, cu was confident they'd leave with a victory.
andrews and smsu had different plans, as he buried a three with 1:26 to play and roehl hit one of two free throws to drop the margin to two. After cu hit one of two at the line with 21 seconds to play, that left the door open for miller who buried the game-tying three with three seconds on the clock.
concordia advanced the ball to half court where tyler called a timeout still with 2.0 seconds to play. Inbounding from half court, cu lobbed the ball to heiman in the paint. Heiman caught the pass down low, spun and elevated a soft jumper in the paint and it didn't drop, rimming out as the buzzer sounded signalling a second ot.
the third overtime started with concordia gaining the quick lead at the line again. Smsu answered with a three-point play for their first lead of the overtime sessions.
heiman was not having it, answering with a jumper in the paint at 4:21 and another jumper at 3:34. He couldn't be stopped.
smsu went back down low as roehl converted a layup and a free throw for a three-point play and smsu reclaiming a one point edge.
momentum shift? not with heiman still on the floor. Heiman knocked down a three with a defender's hand elevated right at his release, but the three went down and concordia was back on top by two, 88-86 midway through the period.
andrews countered with a layup and roehl put in two more smsu free throws for a four point swing, sending the lead back to the mustangs.
with just under a minute to play, concordia hit the glass hard, grabbing two offensive rebounds before heiman muscled in a put back to knot the game at 90.
andrews missed smsu's go-ahead bucket with 32 seconds left, leaving it in tyler's hands as the clock wound down. Tight mustang defense forced a well defended baseline jumper to bounce straight up off the front iron, just missing as it came back down for a third overtime.
although the mustangs worked hard to comeback in the third ot, a nine point deficit was too much to overcome as concordia put the game away at the foul line.
the key defensive play late in the final stages of the game was a miller three from nba-range on the left wing blocked by senior sammy ricks (st. Paul, minn.) with tyler grabbing the loose ball before being fouled with four seconds to play. Another miller connection would've cut the deficit to one point, possibly prolonging the game if not for ricks' quick hands.
smsu attempted 31 three-pointers in the contest, connecting on just nine for a 29.0% percentage while concordia made the same amount in just 17 tries, an efficient 52.9%. The golden bears hit 53.2% (33-62) from the floor while holding smsu to 42.7% (32-75) shooting. Each team committed 11 turnovers.
connecting on 34-45 (75.6%) of their free throws tonight, concordia was one off the team record for both makes and attempts.
the game featured 13 ties and 17 lead changes with plenty of drama.
while smsu had five players clock 41-plus minutes, concordia spread their time around with seven players contributing at least 31 minutes led by heiman's 45. The contributions were significant as well with cu's bench outscoring smsu's 37-15.
the win for concordia bumps them up to fifth place in the league, a half game ahead of u-mary and a game behind fourth place winona state, who lost at the buzzer at augustana. Smsu falls down to eighth place, only a half game up on wayne state and a game up on upper iowa for ninth and 10th, respectively. They are also only a half game out of seventh and a game out of sixth.
this is the second season sweep concordia has provided in the all-time series against smsu, the last coming in 2004-05 season.
concordia returns to gangelhoff center for the last time in the regular season next saturday, february 20 against msu moorhead at 6:00 p.m. For pink zone, an event to promote breast cancer awareness. Check www.cugoldenbears.com for more details on the event early in the week.
photography by justin oakman photography
