Kansas City, Mo. -- A three pointer with 2.5 seconds on the clock helped lift the third-ranked Northwest Missouri Bearcats over the Missouri Southern men's basketball program today as the Lions fell in the semifinals of the 2017 MIAA Basketball Tournament.
Southern (18-12), finishes the season as the best three-point shooting Lions squad in MSSU history. The Lions broke the MSSU school record today for three pointers in a season, finishing with 250, while Elyjah Clark broke the single-season individual record with 89 three pointers this season.
The Lions were led in scoring by 21 points each from JJ Cratit and CJ Carr. Carr went 7-16 from the field and 5-6 from the free throw line, as he pulled down six rebounds and dished out three assists, while adding three steals. Cratit went 8-16 from the field and 4-9 from long-range.
Northwest (28-1) move on to the finals of the MIAA Tournament and will play Central Missouri at 1 pm on Sunday. The Bearcats were led by Justin Pitts with 24 points, however the Lions held him to just six points in the second-half.
After Northwest went up 9-5 early on, the Lions stormed back and a pair of free-throws from Carr cut the lead to one (13-12) with 13:50 to go. A layup from Lawrence Brown with seven minutes left in the half, gave the Lions a 19-18 lead and a three from Kinzer Lambert gave the Lions a 27-25 lead, capping a 6-0 run by Southern.
The Bearcats, however, went on a 10-2 run to close out the half and went into the locker room up 35-29.
The Lions started the second-half on a 7-0 run and had a 36-35 lead, forcing a Northwest timeout with 18:02 left in the game. The Bearcats' largest lead of the second-half came at six points with 5:39 left as a jumper from Anthony Woods gave Northwest a 57-51 lead.
Southern went on an 8-2 run and tied the game at 59 with a little over two minutes left in the game. A pair of free throws from Carr the next trip down gave the Lions a 61-59 lead with one minute to go and after Northwest had tied the game at 61 with free throws from Pitts, Carr hit a running jumper with 41 seconds to go to put the Lions up 63-61.
The Bearcats' Chris-Ebou Ndow was fouled with 23 seconds to go and made one of the two free throws to get within one of the Lions (63-62) but the Bearcats grabbed the offensive rebound and called timeout. After a missed jumper and another offensive rebound, this time with 14 seconds left, the Bearcats called another timeout. Coming out of the timeout, Pitts hit Zach Schneider on the right wing and Schneider drilled a three-pointer to give Northwest a 65-63 lead with 2.5 seconds to go.
The Lions tried a full-length court pass, but it was too long, giving the ball back to Northwest and the Bearcats hit two more free-throws late to seal the win.
The Lions shot 44 percent from the field and 39 percent from long-range, but made just 60 percent of their free throws. Northwest shot 42 percent from the field and 84 percent from the charity stripe and out rebounded Southern 40-23.
Southern finishes the season at 18-12 for the second year in a row.
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