Dec. 1, 2011
Contact: Greg Murphy
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FAIRBORN, Ohio - D'Aundray Brown tipped in a missed shot with 0.3 seconds to play to lift Cleveland State to a 45-43 win at Wright State in the Horizon League opener for both teams on Thursday night.
The Vikings improved to 7-1 overall and 1-0 in league play, while HL the Raiders fell to 3-4 overall (0-1 HL).
WSU's Cole Darling tied the game at 43-43 with just over a minute to play when he split a pair of free throws and after a Raider stop on the other end, the Vikings forced a backcourt violation on WSU, getting the ball back with 27 seconds left.
Following a timeout, CSU ran the clock down to about eight seconds before Montgomery made his move to the basket through the lane. His left-handed shot rattled around the rim and Brown came in from the right side to tip in the game-winner as the buzzer sounded.
"D'Aundray is one of the key players of our team," head coach Gary Waters said. "He went after that ball and we were fortunate to come out on top in that situation because if they get the rebound, we go to overtime. We wanted to take the shot clock down to about eight seconds before we made our move and we did that in case we missed, it would give us a chance for an offensive rebound."
The referees gathered and put 0.3 seconds back on the clock and following a Raider timeout, a full court pass was batted away as the Vikings won for the seventh time in eight games this year.
"When I look at the stats and see that we're shooting 40-percent, you can't feel very good about that," Waters said. "But then I see that we're holding them to 41-percent and I feel very good about the way our guys defended because that's what we do. One thing I thought we didn't do that they did a great job was handling the basketball. I thought they played their tails off. They could have won, but the chips seemed to fall our way on that last shot.
"We didn't execute as well as I thought we should have today. They were playing man, but they were staying inside of us so our whole key was to penetrate them. I was disappointed because we fell into their trap shooting the jump shot."
The win was CSU's third in the final five seconds this year. Trey Harmon hit a three-pointer with 2.8 seconds left in a 67-64 win over St. Bonaventure on Nov. 18 and Montgomery hit two free throws with 3.4 seconds left in a win over Boston University on Nov. 25.
Tim Kamczyc scored a game-high 12 points with seven rebounds to lead the Vikings, hitting 4-of-6 from the field. Montgomery finished with nine points and six boards, while Brown added eight points, five rebounds and three steals.
Trey Harmon scored five points, becoming the 20th player in school history to reach 1,000 career points and the second this season, joining Montgomery.
The game was back and forth all night with nine ties and 10 lead changes.
The Vikings raced out to a quick 16-8 lead less than eight minutes in on a Luda Ndaye jumper with 12:13 left in the half. However, the Raiders closed the half on a 13-5 run as the teams went into the locker room tied at 21-21.
Harmon hit a three-pointer with 14:37 left in the game to give the Vikings a 31-27 lead, the largest lead of the half for either team. It also gave Harmon 1,000 career points.
From there, the Raiders scored seven straight points to take a 34-31 lead with 9:04 left in the game. But the Vikings came back with six consecutive points of their own to regain a 37-34 lead with 6:14 left. The teams continued to trade baskets with neither team getting ahead by more than two points the rest of the way.
A Montgomery runner in the lane gave CSU a 43-42 lead with 1:27 left and after Darling split his free throws, Brown followed with his game-winner.
CSU shot just 16-of-40 (.400) from the field, while holding the Raiders to .410 (16-39) shooting. The Vikings held a 28-21 advantage on the boards, including 10-6 on the offensive end, leading to 12 second chance points.
AJ Pacher led the Raiders with nine points.
CSU continues its two-game Horizon League roadtrip with a 2:00 p.m. contest at Detroit on Saturday (Dec. 3). It will be the Vikings sixth straight game away from home.
