ST. PAUL, Minn. – Senior guard
Antwan Kimmons beat the buzzer with an off-balanced jumper to seal a 63-61 victory for the Concordia-St. Paul men's basketball team (3-7, 1-4 NSIC) over Augustana (6-5, 2-3 NSIC) on Saturday evening at Gangelhoff Center.
Trailing 61-58 with 1:37 to play,
Marcus Skeete buried a clutch three to tie the game to set up a dramatic finish. After forcing a tough shot for Augie's Jadan Graves with eight seconds to play,
Jacob Everson pulled down a crucial board before Kimmons streaked down the court and pulled up for a double-clutch fadeaway jumper right in front of the CSP bench to cue the hysteria.
Kimmons matched
Cal Greene with a team-leading 12 points on the night as Kimmons hit 5-9 from the floor while Greene was a perfect 4-4 shooting and 3-3 from the free throw line. Kimmons added five assists and five rebounds while Greene chipped in a pair of boards and a pair of steals in the win.
Marcus Skeete joined the pair in double figures with 11 points on 4-6 shooting to go along with five boards and two assists.
Emad Elniel knocked three three-pointers off the bench to add nine points and five rebounds on the night.
As a team, Concordia shot a scintillating 56.1% (23-41) from the floor and 50.0% (10-20) from deep in the win. The 56.1% was the highest mark for the team since the Golden Bears hit 59.3% in a 93-61 win over Upper Iowa back on Feb. 22, 2020. On the defensive end, CSP held a Vikings squad that was shooting 46.0% on the season to just 37.1% (23-62) on the night as they consistently forced tough shots. Augie hit just 34.5% (10-29) from beyond the arc and went to the free throw line just seven times in the loss.
In addition to the shooting advantage, the Golden Bears held a hefty 29-10 edge in bench scoring as well as advantages of 24-12 in points in the paint and 20-7 in fast break points.
Augie's top scorer on the night was Jadan Graves, who connected on 6-20 shooting and 4-13 from three-point range to finish with 16 points in the loss.
Concordia found themselves in an early 11-2 hole as Augustana came out swinging, but the Golden Bears quickly steadied the ship with the next seven in a row to close the gap to two. Back-to-back threes at the midway point of the half for Greene and Elniel gave CSP their first lead of the night at 20-17 with 9:00 to play before the break before the two teams jostled for the lead for much of the rest of the half. Another pair of threes at the 5:05 mark from
Caden Hoffman and the 4:27 mark from Skeete gave the Golden Bears their largest lead of the night at 28-23, but the Vikings finished the half on a 5-0 run a few minutes later to even it back up at 31-31 at the half.
The CSP lead was back to three at 36-33 early in the second half following a deep ball from
Jacob Everson, but Augie turned the tide from there with seven points in a row to build a 40-36 advantage of their own. The Vikings maintained a slim edge throughout much of the remainder of the night, pushing it to as many as eight at 58-50 with 6:03 to go, but once again the Golden Bears would not go away. Concordia locked down defensively as they held Augustana to just three points the rest of the way as they rattled off an 8-0 run to tie it up at 58-58. An Akoi Akoi layup with 2:26 left and a Ryan Miller free throw with 1:37 left put Augie back in front at 61-58 to set up the comeback.
Concordia will look to carry the momentum on the road as they travel to Southwest Minnesota State next Friday and Sioux Falls on Saturday in NSIC action.
