His team facing a two-point deficit with seven-tenths of a second remaining and inbounding the ball 92 feet from the basket, Oral Roberts coach Scott Sutton apparently didn't bother to give his players any intricate advice on Saturday night.
"Coach just put three of us down at our end and he said one of you guys go get it," sophomore center Damen Bell-Holter told Examiner.com.
Remarkably enough, that simple strategy actually worked.
Rod Pearson sprinted left along the baseline and fired a length-of-the-floor pass that Bell-Holter caught over Missouri-Kansas City's Spencer Johnson. Bell-Holter then spun left and laid it into the basket at the buzzer, forcing overtime and enabling Oral Roberts to emerge with a miraculous come-from-behind 69-63 victory.
It was a miracle in some ways that Oral Roberts even had a chance to tie the score in regulation considering how poorly the Golden Eagles played for most of the game. Oral Roberts trailed by 18 early in the second half, by 15 with 6:25 left and by 11 with four minutes to go before launching a late comeback to force overtime.
For the Golden Eagles to play their way back into contention in the Summit League, they'll need a late rally of a different sort. They've won three straight to improve to 5-3 in league play, yet they still trail first-place Oakland by 2 1/2 games.
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