PITTSBURG — When Pittsburg State’s Carlos Taylor’s 30-foot buzzer-beater missed wide and Emporia State had finally won, 102-100, after four overtimes, the ESU players barely even celebrated.
There was no mob at midcourt, no chest bumps and few high-fives. Exhausted, the Hornets walked back toward their bench, lined up to shake hands with the Gorillas, and then limped back to their locker room.
“It was more, ‘thank God we got this over with,’” Adam Holthaus said.
An Emporia State comeback in regulation, missed free throws and a few timely shots forced the two teams to play an extra 20 minutes.
Lamar Wilbern and Robert Moores finally put the game away with five free throws in the fourth overtime, which gave the Hornets barely enough of a cushion to end the game nearly an hour after the end of regulation.
During the four overtimes, Wilbern battled cramps and fatigue. He scored a team-high 27 points, grabbed a team-high 16 rebounds, and despite his cramps, played a team-high 52 minutes. At one point in the second OT during a 30-second timeout when the teams are supposed to remain standing on the court, Wilbern hid behind his teammates and sat on the bench before an official told him to get up.
“I hit a wall about three times tonight,” he said.
But when the Hornets needed him most, Wilbern forgot about his tired legs and delivered — at no time more than when calmly draining his last four free throws. His first pair of free throws broke a 94-all tie with 2:46 left in the final OT and turned out to be the go-ahead points for the Hornets. He made two more free throws with 36.7 seconds that pushed the lead to 98-94.
“You practice them and you’ve just got to make them,” Wilbern said. “It’s pressure, but I try not to think about it, go through my routine and knock them down.”
The four-point lead Wilbern gave his team was almost not enough. Taylor followed with a 3-pointer to cut the lead to one with 27.9 seconds left. After a timeout, Pitt State used a full-court press, the Hornets beat the pressure with their passing and Holthaus made a layup with 20.2 seconds left to push the lead to three.
Taylor tried to tie the game again with another 3-pointer, and Moores rebounded the miss and was fouled with 9.1 seconds left, needing to make at least one free throw to make it a two-possession game.
Moores had been battling back spasms during the week and was not playing at 100 percent. He had also struggled during the game at the free throw line, making only 1-of-4. He missed his first attempt short, and assistant coach Ben McCollum yelled from the bench to shoot the ball up higher in the air.
“I started shooting it short,” Moores said, “because I was trying to get it to the rim, just hoping it would go in. So he told me to shoot it up in the air.”
McCollum’s advice worked, and it might have prevented a fifth overtime. Moores made the free throw, and Taylor followed with another 3-pointer with 4.3 seconds left that cut ESU’s lead to one.
After Moores made another one of two free throws, the Gorillas inbounded to Taylor with 3.7 seconds left, and he dribbled into the frontcourt and let loose a 3-pointer that would have ended the game either way. Luckily for the Hornets, it ended the way they wanted.
Nearly three hours prior to the end, it didn’t look the Hornets would even have a chance. Pitt State jumped out to a 7-0 lead and it took the Hornets 3 minutes, 9 seconds to make their first field goal.
The Hornets struggled to take care of the ball in the first half, turning it over 13 times, but Moores kept them in it, scoring 10 points in the first half and not missing a shot.
“I just knew that when I came in, I had to bring some energy,” Moores said. “Coming into the game, we were kind of sluggish and tentative. I just knew when I got in I had to get something done.”
The Hornets didn’t play their best game in regulation, but they hung around, never letting Pitt State’s lead get bigger than eight. Dustin Andrews made a 3-pointer to tie the game for the first time with 3:24 left in regulation.
Emporia State even had a chance to win the game on the final possession of regulation, but Moores jumper and a Doug Moore putback at the buzzer missed.
“All I can say is that first half, things didn’t go the way we wanted,” Wilbern said. “Second half, we just fought, man, and one overtime, two overtime, and so on and so forth, we just kept fighting.”
The Hornets had to show that they still had some fight left in the first overtime. The Gorillas took a six-point lead with 3:10 left on a putback by Rodney Grace. They led by four with 1:13 left when Emporia State called timeout, and coach David Moe decided to switch offenses and run Moe’s patented passing game, which the Hornets have scraped this season for a ball-screen offense that better fits their personnel.
Moe’s move worked, with Tim Niles driving the baseline and passing to Wilbern on the weak side for a layup, cutting Pitt State’s lead to two with 58 seconds left. Niles forced a turnover to get Emporia State back the ball, and Moe called his final timeout with 15.6 seconds left to try to set up a play to tie the game.
The Hornets went to Moores, who lost his dribble and dove after the ball near midcourt. Moores signaled for a timeout, which the Hornets were out of.
“I thought I had one,” Moores said. “And I was like, ‘oh man,’ so I just held onto the basketball.’”
Instead of calling timeout, which would have resulted in a technical foul for Emporia State, the referees called a jump ball and the Hornets got another chance.
With 7.7 seconds left, ESU inbounded the ball to Wilbern and he drove to the basket. Wilbern got past the PSU defense and went up for a layup, but Pitt State’s T.J. Stukes blocked the ball against the backboard, the ball landing in the hands of Holthaus.
“I saw that shot go up,” Holthaus said, “saw two guys collapse on Lamar and knew I had the rebound.”
Holthaus put the ball back up and in to force a second overtime, the sophomore big man’s most important points on a night he scored a career-high 19 points.
The Hornets controlled the second and third overtimes and never trailed, but they would either miss a free throw or turn the ball over, allowing Pitt State a chance to keep forcing overtimes.
“There’s a lot of things obviously both teams could have done better down the stretch, but I thought it was one of the most competitive, balanced games,” Moe said. “Both teams made mistakes, but I felt both teams fought so hard. And it made it such a great game, a great environment.”
When the game finally ended, Wilbern was informed by ESU assistant sports information director Josh Slaughter that he needed to go upstairs for a radio interview.
Wilbern sighed, but the good news was there was an elevator, and the Hornets were winners.
Saturday at John Lance Arena
Emporia St. 35 37 6 6 8 10 — 102
Pitt. St. 40 32 6 6 8 8 — 100
EMPORIA STATE (12-3, 6-2 MIAA)
Wilbern 9-18 6-8 27, Holthaus 7-7 5-10 19, Moores 6-11 3-8 17, Niles 6-14 2-3 16, Boswell 2-5 2-2 7, Box 2-11 2-2 7, Andrews 2-6 1-4 7, Ping 1-3 0-0 2, Moore 0-1 0-0 0, Pyle 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 35-76 21-37 102.
PITTSBURG STATE (7-7, 2-5)
Magana 10-22 3-3 27, Taylor 8-22 5-8 25, Stukes 7-15 1-3 15, Evans 5-8 4-6 14, Grace 6-9 2-7 14, McKinnie 0-3 4-4 4, Ivory 0-0 1-2 1, Burris 0-3 0-0 0, McCoy 0-2 0-0 0, Smith 0-3 0-0 0. Totals 36-87 20-33 100.
3-point goals — Emporia State 11-23 (Wilbern 3-5, Niles 2-5, Moores 2-3, Andrews 2-5, Box 1-3, Boswell 1-2), Pittsburg State 8-28 (Magana 4-13, Taylor 4-11, McKinnie 0-1, Burris 0-1, McCoy 0-1, Smith 0-1). Fouled out — Emporia State: Boswell; Pittsburg State: Grace, Evans, McKinnie. Rebounds — Emporia State 57 (Wilbern 16), Pittsburg State 44 (Stukes 12). Assists — Emporia State 18 (Niles 5), Pittsburg State 12 (Taylor 5). Total fouls — Emporia State 26, Pittsburg State 29. Att. — 2,258.