Yuri Collins’ running floater at the double overtime buzzer lifted Saint Louis to a thrilling 92-90 Atlantic 10 Conference victory Wednesday night over George Mason at EagleBank Arena.
Saint Louis Men’s Basketball on Twitter: “Yuri Collins. That’s the tweet. #TeamBlue pic.twitter.com/cVnXgnlmzj / Twitter”
Yuri Collins. That’s the tweet. #TeamBlue pic.twitter.com/cVnXgnlmzj
The Billikens (15-6, 6-2 A-10) move into a tie for second place in the league standings with their fourth-straight victory and second-straight A-10 road win. The Bills snapped George Mason’s four-game winning streak, as the Patriots fall to 11-8 overall and 4-2 in the league.
Collins finished with a career-high 35 points, 13 assists, five rebounds and five steals. He had just three turnovers in 47 minutes. Additionally, Collins was a perfect 10-for-10 from the free-throw line.
Francis Okoro and Jordan Nesbitt chipped in 14 points apiece. Okoro added a team-high nine rebounds.
George Mason, which rallied from 14 down in the second half to force overtime, received 32 points from Josh Oduro. DeVon Cooper had 22, while Davonte Gaines scored 12 points and pulled down a game-high 17 rebounds.
Collins’ heroics were set up by a clutch 3-pointer by George Mason’s Oduro with 6.5 seconds left, which tied the score at 90-90. Terrence Hargrove Jr. quickly inbounded the ball to Collins, and he took it the length of the court and got a shot off before the buzzer. It hit off the back iron and dropped in, sending the Billiken bench into a frenzy. Following an official review, the basket was ruled good and SLU escaped with a critical A-10 win on the road.
“What a really good college basketball game, we just happened to make the last shot,” SLU head coach Travis Ford said. “It was a total team effort. Yuri had one of the best performances by a point guard that I have seen in a long time. How George Mason was playing defense, he knew he was going to have to put the team on his shoulders and make things happen. It was just a special performance.”
The Billikens had a double-digit lead with less than four minutes remaining in regulation before the Patriots clawed back into it with an 11-0 run. With the score tied, Fred Thatch Jr. nailed a 3-pointer with 39 seconds remaining to put the Bills up three. However, George Mason answered with a trey of its own on the other end, and SLU couldn’t get the last shot of regulation to fall and the game went into overtime.
George Mason went up five in the first overtime, but Collins got the Billikens back into with a traditional 3-point play and a jumper to tie the score at 81-all. Neither team was able to score in the final two minutes of the first overtime, sending the game into double OT.
A Thatch basket and a clutch Collins trey made it 86-83 Billikens one minute into double overtime, and the Bills never trailed again.
Two Collins free throws put SLU up by three late, setting up Odoro and Collins’ last-second heroics.
The Billikens are back it on Saturday when they host the Dayton Flyers in a 1 p.m. tip at Chaifetz Arena on ESPNU.
