The Beloit College men's basketball team nearly came back from a double digit deficit late in the game before falling to Illinois College 73-70 in Flood Arena Saturday evening.
The teams traded a number of small runs in a teeter-totter type of first half. The Blue Boys hit a jumper with 52 seconds left in the period and then a Illinois' Riley Mehrens received an inbound and took it the length of the court dropping in a layup as time expired to make it 34-29 in favor of IC at the half.
The Buccaneers reclaimed the lead just under five minutes into the second half after Andrew Walters' old-fashioned three-point play made it 44-41. The Blue Boys responded with a three ball to knot the game, retook the lead in their next possession and held it the rest of the way.
With 2:31 on the clock and Illinois College leading by ten, 71-61, the Buccaneers continued to put pressure on the Blue Boys. A free throw and layup from Tristan Shoup cut the lead to seven, 71-64 with 1:13 remaining.
Head Coach Brian Vraney called a quick 30 second timeout immediately and the Bucs' defense came out with a perfectly executed game plan forcing a quick turnover as Shoup registered the takeaway. However, a flurry of shots near the rim did not end in points for the Bucs. A foul on the defensive rebound on the final attempt of the flurry put the Blue Boys on the line.
Shoup hauled in the missed opportunity and Walters was fouled on the other end making one of two to bring the score to 71-65 with 50 seconds remaining.
The Bucs fouled and Mehrens split his two chances pushing the lead back to seven with 38 seconds to go.
Beloit pushed the pace and scored quickly, just seven seconds later, as Shoup buried a three-pointer off a perfectly executed screen and pop at the top of the key to cut the lead to four, 72-68. Coach Vraney called for the timeout with 29 ticks of the clock left.
Illinois College inbounded and was able to avoid the Bucs until a foul was finally called with 18 seconds to go. Another 1-1 from the line made it a five-point game, 73-68.
Walters grabbed the offensive rebound on a missed three-pointer and was fouled with three seconds to go. He made both to make it 73-70. Mylan Walters just beat the buzzer in fouling to give the Bucs one last opportunity if IC missed the free throws. The first was no good. With 0.5 seconds on the clock, the Bucs had just enough time to catch and heave the ball towards their basket. That's exactly what happened on the second as Dan Babb grabbed the rebound and launched it, on line but too long leading to the final, 73-70.
Shoup led all players with 29 points on 11-21 from the field, 2-5 from long range and 5-7 from the charity stripe. He added 11 rebounds for the double-double and also tallied a game-high three steals in the contest. Walters was close to another double-double with ten points and eight boards adding a game-high three assists in the game.
Up Next: The Bucs head north to De Pere to take on St. Norbert College Tuesday at 7:30 p.m.
