Box Score Feb. 2, 2011
Box Score
BEAUMONT - Gary Dixon tipped in a Trent Hutchin miss at the final buzzer on Wednesday night as Southeastern Louisiana was able to escape the Montagne Center with an 89-87 Southland Conference basketball victory over Lamar University.
Just eight seconds earlier, Lamar's Stan Brown had tied the game at 87 on a tip-in of his own. Brown rebounded a Tremell Adams 3-point miss that would have given the Cardinals the lead, and converted the field goal.
Trent Hutchin, who finished with a career-high tying 32 points, raced the ball down the floor and tried a 15-footer. The ball caromed off the rim into the hands of Dixon who made his only field goal of the game.
"It was a tough game for us to lose," said LU head coach Steve Roccaforte. "We made a good, pressure play on our end of the court at the end of the game, but we didn't get back down court fast enough. Their guy missed the first shot, but we didn't do a good job of rebounding the ball, and the other guy did a good job of stuffing it back in."
Lamar, which will look to pick up a road win at UTSA on Saturday evening at 7, fell to 9-12 overall and 3-4 in the SLC. The Lions (10-9) move a game ahead of Lamar in the SLC East Division standings with a 4-3 conference mark.
Down 70-64 with 6:34 to play, Lamar went on a 10-4 run to tie the game at 74 with 5:15 to play. A three-point play by Mike James at the 2:11 mark gave Lamar the lead at 83-82 and set up the exciting finish.
Hutchin buried his eighth 3-pointer of the game; tying the Montagne Center record for most 3-pointers by an opponent and giving the Lions an 85-83 lead with 1:34 on the clock. Two other players have knocked down eight treys against Lamar in the Montagne, including SLU's Amir Abdur-Rahim in 2004.
LU's Anthony Miles made 1-of-2 free throws with 29 seconds to play to cut the SLU lead to one. Hutchin knocked down a pair of free throws at the 20-second mark to put the Lions back up by three. Miles drew a foul with 16 seconds left, and once again made 1-of-2.
Miles stole DeShawn Patterson's inbounds pass which set up the final seconds of drama.
The final statistics showed a Lamar team that could very well have won the game. The Cardinals shot 50.8 percent from the field and made 9-of-17 from 3-point range. The Cards only turned the ball over 11 times, as well.
"To me, the shooting percentages don't really make that much difference," noted Roccaforte. "The bottom line is we didn't win the game. It was a tough game to lose, and I'm disappointed. We didn't defend their two starting guys on the perimeter the way we needed to in order to win."
SLU looked impressive early, building a 14-8 lead just over five minutes into the game. Lamar roared back, however, as a Donley Minor jumper capped an 18-0 LU run that put the Cardinals up 26-14 with 9:36 on the clock.
When all the dust had settled at the end of the first half, the Cardinals led by just one point at 39-38.
Adams made the most of his third start for Lamar as he led the Cardinals with 21 points on 7-of-10 shooting. The junior guard was also 4-of-5 from long range and made all three of his free throws.
Miles ended the game with 16 points and four assists, while Devon Lamb chipped in with 12 points and eight boards.
In addition to Hutchin's 32 points, SLU guard Brandon Fortenberry finished with 21 points and seven assists. Patterson added 13 points, five rebounds and four assists.
LAMAR
