Every basketball player dreams about draining a buzzer-beater from halfcourt to win his team the game.
Tonight, Corey Hassan will be having nightmares about the one that almost did.
Hassan nailed what would have been the game-winning shot from just behind halfcourt yesterday, but reviews later showed that the ball was still in his hand as time expired. The swing negated what would have been the freshman’s second game-winning shot in the span of a week, and instead gave the University of Maine a dramatic 53-51 win over the Terriers at Agganis Arena.
“You see highlights like that every night, you just hope that it’s not you some night,” said Maine coach Ted Woodward. “It was a great shot and we were fortunate it didn’t come before the buzzer.”
After two missed free throws gave the Terriers (8-12, 5-4 America East) one last chance to win the game with 1.8 seconds left, Shaun Wynn grabbed a rebound and fed Hassan on the right side of the court. The freshman sharpshooter dribbled up the sideline and struggled for a moment to get a shot off in the face of an approaching Maine defender. He finally let one fly from about five feet beyond the halfcourt line, and the Terrier bench erupted as his heave hit the bottom of the net.
But the celebration was short-lived, as referees conferred at the scorer’s table and ruled that the ball was still in Hassan’s hands as time expired. Replays clearly confirmed that the clock had hit 0.0 before the freshman was able to get off the shot.
“It was a tough make, but it was clearly after the horn went off,” said BU coach Dennis Wolff. “We did get it up there pretty quickly. I think by the guy running up on him, it didn’t allow him to turn and square as soon as he would’ve liked to.”
With Maine (9-11, 4-5) holding a seemingly safe 53-48 lead with only eight seconds remaining, senior co-captain Shaun Wynn hit a 3-pointer with 2.7 ticks left to pull the Terriers within two. Freshman Marques Johnson quickly fouled Maine forward Chris Bruff, but Bruff missed both of the ensuing free throws to set up Hassan’s last-second dramatics.
For the Terriers, it was one final missed opportunity in a day full of wasted chances. BU hurt itself all game long, shooting only 32.8 percent from the field, the third time in the past four games the team has been held under 40 percent. The club also made only 6-of-14 free throw attempts in the contest.
“A lot of that’s upstairs, a lot of it’s mental,” said Tony Gaffney, who was one of three Terriers in double figures with 11 points. “It’s definitely in a lot of guy’s heads, and again that’s huge, but we’re going to work on that and we’ll get there.”
Gaffney also paced a strong Terrier defensive effort with five steals in only 16 minutes of play. Senior co-captain Kevin Gardner led the club with 16 points and 10 rebounds for his fifth double-double of the year, while Wynn chipped in with 11 points and seven boards of his own.
But the Terriers once again struggled to put up any kind of consistent scoring attack, coming out sluggish at the beginning of both halves. It took BU two and a half minutes to net its first basket of the game and another three to get its second. It was even worse in the second half when the team was held scoreless over the first six minutes.
“We just came out flat, we’ve been doing it all year,” Gardner said. “Today it really hurt us. I feel like that’s where we lost the game, that first five minutes.”
Hassan in particular struggled to get his normally consistent shot falling, netting only two points on 1-for-8 shooting. The lone basket marks the only points the swingman has scored in two full games since his game-winner against the University of Vermont last weekend.
“I think right now he’s struggling with his confidence,” Wolff said. “I think he passed up open shots so he’s really not sure right now when to shoot and when not to shoot.”
Despite their struggles, the Terriers still had a win within their grasp for much of the game. BU closed out the first half on an 11-2 run to open up an eight-point margin, the Terriers’ biggest of the game. But four ties and 10 lead changes – including seven in the second half – eventually got the best of the Terriers, who fell back into a two-way tie for third place in the America East.
BU now faces a tough stretch with five of their next seven games on the road, including match-ups with league-leading University at Albany and second-place Binghamton University that should ultimately determine the club’s seeding in the conference tournament.
“We got to dig down deep and gut a few of these road wins out,” Gardner said. “Those games are going to be tough, I don’t think there’s any one of them that we can’t win. And we’re definitely just going to need to give a better effort than we did tonight.”
