Cameron stuns No. 6-ranked WT

FRISCO, Texas—Cameron University opened overtime on a 9-0 run and then held on to shock No. 6-ranked West Texas A&M, 93-89, in the quarterfinals of the Lone Star Conference Men’s Basketball Tournament at the Comerica Center, leaving the mighty Buffs and their fans sitting in stunned silence Thursday evening.

The Buffs had won the last six Lone Star Tournament titles and were the heavy favorite to make it a seventh straight but as the Aggies have done all season, that hype was what has driven Cameron to go from a 4-win season last year to a spot in the LSC Tournament a year later.

Cameron’s players wore their same “Overlooked” warm-up shirts that Coach Kevin O’Connor got for his team after the league coaches and media members voted the Aggies last in the pre-season poll. They had to pull out a big win over Midwestern in their final game of the regular season and then got some help from Angelo State to ease into the tournament as the eighth seed and a meeting with the Buffs.

The Aggies had to sit and listen at the LSC Awards Banquet as the Buffs swept nearly all of the men’s awards including Player of the Year Larry Wise, Defensive Player of the Year Ryland Holt, Freshman of the Year Kieran Elliott, and Coach of the Year Tom Brown and that only left the CU players even more filled with resolve entering Thursday’s game. The Buffs who fell to 26-4, will load those trophies on the bus and head home while the Aggies return Saturday at 2:30 p.m. to face the winner of Thursday’s late game between Eastern New Mexico and Angelo State in the semifinals.

“We played WT close the first two games but today we managed to get over the hump,” O’Connor said. “Daylon comes down and makes a huge shot there to open the overtime. We didn’t execute there in regulation with the fouls but we talk about mistake response at every practice. We won two league games last year and four games total. This progression comes from hard work.”

Thursday’s game sure wasn’t perfect by any means as the Aggies had plenty of chances to avoid the overtime period but they missed critical free throws, had a couple of costly fouls in the backcourt and a couple of instances where the shot selection wasn’t what O’Connor wanted as the Aggies were trying to run some clock.

However, the quick surge to start overtime left plenty of smiles on the Aggies and a good group of fans who made the trip south to see the huge upset.

“This is probably as big a win as there was today in the country,” O’Connor said. “At Aggie Madness I told the fans that we were going to work hard on rebounding; it’s something you have to do in practice every day to get better. Today we had 18 second-chance points and that’s a huge part of why we won today. It’s an X factor for us. Those are some of the reasons we came in expecting to win. We believed in ourselves and these guys just came out and executing the game plan.”

The Aggies controlled the tip in the overtime and Daylon Andrews drilled a trey just 20 seconds into the five-minute extension and CU was in front for good.

A steal by CU’s Lavell Brodnex set the Aggies up on offense and Andre Washington was fouled on a drive to the rim. He made both free throws for an 83-78 lead. WT standout Larry Wise missed another shot and Washington grabbed the rebound and raced downcourt and lofted a hook-shot for an 85-78 lead with 2:34 remaining.

Wise missed another shot for the Buffs and was called for a foul while trying for the rebound. Brodnex hit both free throws for an 87-78 lead with 2:23 remaining and the Aggies had command and were eager to close it out.

The Buffs finally got their first points of the OT on a Zach Toussaint trey and an Aggie turnover gave Wise a chance under the rim and he sank a layup to cut the CU lead to four, 87-83 with 1:42 remaining.

Cameron had a chance at a fast-break dunk but it missed, however, Miles Gurske grabbed the offensive rebound and drew a foul on the Buffs and converted 1-of-2 free throws.

WT added two free throws with 1:21 remaining but Andrews came right downcourt and slipped free for a layup to push the cushion back to five, 90-85. Toussaint added two more free throws with 43 seconds remaining to cut the CU lead to three, 90-87. But the WT guard was unable to make a driving layup with 22 seconds remaining and Thomas grabbed the rebound and got the ball to Andrews who was quickly fouled with 16 seconds remaining.

Andrews calmly made both free throws for a 92-87 lead and when Mohammed missed a 3-point shot at the other end and Thomas grabbed the rebound for the Aggies, this one was in the books.

Cameron used its long-range shooting, strong defense and great rebounding to help turn the tide against the Buffs. Cameron hit 12-of-24 from long range for a sizzling 50 percent. The Aggies limited the Buffs to just 38 percent shooting from the field. The Buffs, though, stayed in the game by hitting 30-of-32 free throws.

Andrews had a huge game for the Aggies with 31 points including hitting 6-of-9 from long range. Thomas added 17 points while Washington added 15 and Prudhomme 10, plus Brodnex added nine.