Box Score
ABILENE, Texas - - Junior Tom Norton's three-pointer with eight seconds to go capped a furious second-half rally by the Truman men's basketball team, but Abilene Christian got the final word with a last-second runner in the lane to defeat the Bulldogs 70-68 in both teams' season-openers on Friday night.
After falling behind by 15 at the break, 41-26, the Bulldogs (0-1) slowly began to chip away at the ACU (1-0) lead behind eight second-half three-pointers and a 60% overall shooting mark. Following a Wildcat triple at the 6:41 mark to put ACU ahead 66-58, the Bulldogs went on a 7-0 run over the next 2:50 to cut the deficit to one at 66-65.
Neither team could find the bottom of the net until just 18 seconds remained, as ACU pushed the lead back to three on a pair of free throws. However, after taking the inbound pass, Norton pulled up from 35 feet and put in the tying triple with eight seconds left on the clock.
Following a timeout, ACU inbounded, and Marc Little found a hole into the lane and converted on a short runner with less than a second remaining on the clock. The Bulldogs couldn't get a shot off in the final five-tenths of a second, allowing ACU to escape with the two-point win.
Freshman Mike Carlson led the Bulldogs with 15 points, while both Norton and junior EJ Hicks added ten points apiece. Freshman Andrew Vander Zwaag scored nine points and corralled a team-high six rebounds, as the Bulldogs shot 49.0% (25-for-51) for the game overall and 8-for-22 (36.4%) from three-point range. The 'Dogs went just 10-of-15 (66.7%) from the foul line, including a pair of missed front ends of one-and-ones in the final two minutes of the second half.
Sophomore Isaac Gardner scored nine points, freshman Patrick Burmester added eight and sophomore Marek Bush poured in seven to round out the Bulldog scoring.
Truman out-rebounded the host Wildcats 34-28 with the teams finishing even on the offensive glass with eight each.
The Bulldogs will turn around and hit the court again at 5:30 pm tomorrow (Nov. 12) when they take on Angelo State in the final game of the Wildcat Classic. ASU came up on the losing end of a 79-73 decision with East Central (Okla.) earlier on Friday in the Classic.
