DENVER, Colo – Demonte Harper hit the shot heard ‘round the Bluegrass.
Harper’s three-pointer with 4.3 seconds left swished through the nets and gave the Morehead State men’s basketball team the biggest win in school history as they upset fourth-seeded Louisville 62-61 Thursday in the Pepsi Center in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
The Eagles’ win against their in-state rivals was the first against Louisville since 1956-57. The Cardinals and Eagles had played the last three times MSU appeared in the NCAA Tournament in 2008-09, 1983-84 and 1960-61. U of L won by double digits every other time.
The Eagles improved to 25-9. They will now play the winner of the no. 5 Vanderbilt/no.12 Richmond game on Saturday in the third round. Tip time will be announced a later time. It marked the third straight season an OVC team has won an NCAA Tournament game after the Eagles did in 2008-09 and Murray State upset Vanderbilt last year. The 25 wins also equals the most wins in school history.
MSU, seeded no. 13 in the NCAA Tournament Southwest Regional, trailed by four (61-57) with 1:20 left after a Terrance Jennings’ dunk. But moments later, Jennings fouled Kenneth Faried, and the MSU big man drained both charity tosses to bring MSU to within 61-59.
Harper fouled Elisha Justice immediately, but Justice misfired on the front end of a one-and-one (U of L was 7-of-16 from the free throw line). That set up the final play. Harper ran the clock down to about six seconds and fired up a three-pointer from the top of the key over Peyton Siva. The shot went down and pandemonium broke out in the Eagle crowd and bench area. Louisville had a final shot attempt by Mike Marra in the corner, but Faried denied the attempt and the celebration ensued.
Harper, coming off an OVC Tournament MVP effort two weekends ago, only hit one three-pointer in the game and finished with eight points. Terrance Hill scored a career-high 23 points, hitting 5-of-6 three-pointers, 6-of-9 from the field overall, and 6-of-8 from the free throw line. Ty Proffitt notched 13 points, while Faried recorded his 85th career double-double with 12 points and 17 rebounds. He is now just two points shy of 2,000 for his career and is just 15 rebounds shy of breaking Steve Hamilton’s career rebounding record.
Besides Chris Smith’s 17 points, no other Cardinal player reached double figures. MSU also out-rebounded U of L 41-29
MSU came out with a vengeance, scoring the game’s first 10 points before the ‘Cards hit their first field goal, a dunk by Gorgui Dieng. The Eagles went on to lead 19-7 before U of L scored six straight to cut it to 19-13.
Hill hit a pair of free throws at 6:32 to build the Eagles lead out to 23-14.
Dieng hit a jumper at 1:10 to tie the game at 30. Kuric drilled a three-pointer with 35 ticks left to give the Cardinals their first lead at 33-30. But, as the final horn went off for the half, Hill knocked down a three-ball to send the teams to the locker room tied at 33-33.
U of L opened the second half on an 11-4 run to take a seven-point lead (44-37) with 14:44 remaining. The Cardinals actually led by as much as eight (47-39), but the Eagles erased that margin quickly with three-pointer by Proffitt and Hill. Another Hill trey at 7:01 lifted MSU to just its second lead of the final 20 minutes at 52-50. Hill buried his final three-pointer two minutes later, and MSU led 57-52.
MSU did not score again until Faried’s free throws with 31 seconds left. Louisville went on a 9-0 run to take the 61-57 lead.
