But when Owens swatted away a drive to the basket by Winston early in the second half, his third block, he rolled his ankle as he landed and crumpled in a heap. Owens was helped off the court, favoring his right leg, and taken to the locker room.
He came back out of the tunnel and returned to the bench with about eight minutes to play, bringing the Texas Tech crowd to its feet. They roared again when Owens checked in with 6:52 left, but the lift he gave the Red Raiders was mostly spiritual.
With Owens immobile and Culver ineffective, the reserves Brandone Frances and Kyler Edwards kept the Red Raiders afloat with drives to the basket until Mooney took over.
A graduate transfer who began his career at Air Force and South Dakota before arriving in Lubbock, Mooney made three 3-pointers during a three-minute stretch, the final one giving the Red Raiders their biggest lead, at 48-35.
“All year long we’d have different guys step up and Jarrett’s a special player,” said Mooney, who had received a nudge from the assistant coach Glenn Cyprien to be more aggressive. “He said: ‘It’s your time. Other guys aren’t finding their shot right now, you’ve got to take over this game.’ You don’t tell me twice to shoot the ball.”
But the Spartans, as Auburn had against Virginia in the first game, crept back.
And just after Mooney missed a driving layup, Aaron Henry knifed through the lane at the other end to bring Michigan State within a point, at 52-51, with 2:52 to play.
It was a surge reminiscent of the one Gonzaga made against Texas Tech in the West Region final.
“Stay poised, be tough,” Norense Odiase, who did not take a shot but grabbed nine rebounds, said of the mind-set his teammates carried down the stretch. “Everything that helped us get to this point, we can’t just let it go to waste just because in this game they made a run.”
from Best News Viral http://bit.ly/2KgPEw0
0 Comments