With five seconds left in overtime senior guard Andre Spight took one look at the clock, dribbled the ball up to half court and nailed a game winning shot at the buzzer to give UNC (13-7, 4-3 Big Sky) the 94-91 over North Dakota (7-12, 2-5 Big Sky).
“I was always that kid messing around shooting it from distance. To see this one go in for the game winner, it means a lot. I looked up and I thought I had way more time than I did. When I looked up, I saw three seconds and I timed it in my head. I went one-thousand-one, one-thousand two and just shot it,” Said Spight.
Coming into the game the Bears have been struggling, losing three of their last four games in conference, but with a win in their last outing against Idaho state, the team looked to push there win streak to two after tonight.
The Bears started off the game strong leading 11-2 with just under 16 minutes in the first half, but in no time the Fighting Hawks stormed back tying the game at 15 going into the under 12-minute media timeout.
As the game progressed both teams continued going back and forth with the Fighting Hawks up 33-32 with 3:50 to play in the first half, but the Bears decided they weren’t going to the locker room without a fight, so they made a run.
Propelled by their offense, the Bears went on a 14-4 run to end the half, and with that run the Bears were leading 46-37 to end the first half and had gone to the free throw line 10 times.
Similar to the first half the Bears were up early in the second half, but the Fighting Hawks rallied back to cut the lead to 3 with 17:19 to play.
After the under 16-minute media timeout the game stayed pretty consistent with Bears being up by 5 or 6 and even getting it to 73-64 with six minutes to play.
But like the Fighting Hawks have been doing all game, they battled back, led by junior guard Geno Crandall and junior forward Conner Avants.
The Fighting Hawks tied the game at 76 a piece with 2:21 remaining and right after that an instant timeout was called by Coach Jeff Linder to try and regroup his team.
Out of the timeout the Bears ran a perfect play to set up an alley-oop to senior forward Tanner Morgan for slam and the foul, which sent Morgan to the free-throw line to finish off the three-point play and push lead to 3 with 1:38 to play.
The Hawks stumbled back and had a chance to take the lead, but a charge on Crandall, taken by freshmen forward Jalen Sanders, gave the ball back to the Bears, up one with 14 seconds to play.
That started the foul game as the Bears inbound the ball to redshirt sophomore Jonah Radebaugh. The Fighting Hawks fouled sending Radebaugh to the line. He made both.
As the Fighting Hawks inbound the ball, Crandall dribbled up the court, then Radebaugh fouls him with 9 seconds to go and you could see the shock on fans faces as it happened.
The Bears decided they would put pressure on the Fighting Hawks to make there free-throws rather than giving them a chance at tying the game with a three.
The plan worked as Crandall made the first and missed the second, but the Bears forgot one thing…….to BOX OUT.
On the missed free throw Avants grabbed the rebound and made a put back layup to tie the game, and with no timeouts left Spight went down the court a heaved up a contested three that missed a sent the game to overtime.
As overtime began both teams went a little cold with the first points of the period not coming until the 3:27 mark by the Fighting Hawks, but after that, both teams battled and for the Bears Spight took over and with three seconds left and the game tied at 91…. you know the rest.
“Give credit to the team because when they got slapped in the face with that put back and to go into overtime and to rally themselves. That was a step in the right direction for us as a team when things don't necessarily go your way and there is nothing you can do about it,” said Linder.
Spight had a career and game high 34 points to lead the Bears and Crandall had a team high 30 to lead Fighting Hawks.
The Bears finished out their home stand with two wins and go on the road next week to face off against Idaho and Eastern Washington.
Next home game for the Bears is February 1st vs the Montana Grizzlies.
