Matt Pile's Two-Hand Dunk With One Second Left Pushes Omaha Past SIUE Men's Basketball Team 65-63 Saturday

Joe Pott

Dec 6, 2020 7:57 AM Dec 8, 2020 1:27 PM

Listen to the story

Get The Latest News!

Don't miss our top stories and need-to-know news everyday in your inbox.

EDWARDSVILLE – Matt Pile's two-hand dunk, with a second to play, propelled Omaha to a 65-63 win over SIUE Saturday at First Community Arena.

The win snapped a two-game winning streak for the Cougars, who dropped to 2-3. Omaha improved to 2-4.

The Mavericks got out to a 7-0 lead and pushed the lead to as many as 18 (35-17) in the first half.

"Omaha came out and really played hard," SIUE Head Coach Brian Barone said. "They were flying around and that's why we got down early."

SIUE used a 7-0 run to end the first half to trim the lead to 11 at 35-24 at halftime.

"To our guys credit, they figured some things out and cut it to 11 at half," Barone said. "It was huge (to finish on the run)."

The run continued after the break, as the SIUE scored the first nine points of the second half to trim the lead to 2. Omaha was up three when Shamar Wright tied the game with a three-pointer at 14:42. Cam Williams gave the Cougars their first lead with a tripe at 9:22 to make it 44-43.

Courtney Carter pushed SIUE's lead to 61-58 after a turnover and bucket with 1:15 left, but Omaha's Marco Smith buried a three as the shot clock was running down to even the score with 45 seconds to play. Two free throws by Smith, followed by two free throws from SIUE's Mike Adewunmi had the score tied again with 27 seconds left.

Article continues after sponsor message

Limited spots available - advertise with us today!

Kids 12 & Under Eat Free Wednesdays with Purchase of 1 Adult Meal and Beverage

Shop Local

Prairie Inn Bar & Grill

Get This Deal →

Smith found Pile down low for the final score. Pile finished with 13 points and 10 rebounds.

"He is a tough son of a gun," Barone said of Pile. He ducked us in. We gambled. He rode through our rotation and then finished the way you need to finish."

Smith finished with seven points and four assists.

Adewunmi paced the Cougars with his second straight double-double. He scored 13 points and added 10 rebounds.

"We just weren't able to overcome it at the end," Barone said. "We couldn't make the plays we needed to make or get the stops we needed to get when we were up two or three. It felt like we were up two or three four times and they hit a three or made a three-point play every time."

Courtney Carter turned in his first double-digit scoring outing of the year, with 12 points.

The Cougars shot just 37.5 percent (21-56) from the field and were only 9-30 (30 percent) in the first half.

"The message was pretty simple (at halftime)," Barone said. "We took some bad shots in the first half, but we missed some wide-open layups. The message was to kind of keep doing what we were doing. We needed to finish offensively and then defensively to fly around a little bit more."

SIUE heads back on the road for games at Valparaiso (Wednesday) and Northwestern (Dec. 13).

"No matter what is in front of us, the one team we know that is going to show up every day is us," Barone added. "We'll continue to focus on us."

Prefer RiverBender on Google