Benjamin Hillis drilled a triple with no time left on the clock to lift the University of Regina's men's basketball team to a thrilling 82-79 road victory over Victoria in Canada West action on Friday night.
With just three seconds left and a double-team incoming, second-year forward
Carter Millar kicked it out to Hillis at the left wing. Hillis pump-faked and calmly sidestepped two Victoria defenders, then sunk his only triple of the game to lock up the win for the Cougars.
The win is the first in history for the Cougars in Victoria, as they entered Friday with an 0-15 all-time record against the Vikes in their gym.
It was improbable that the Cougars would even need a shot at the buzzer to win it, considering
Greishe Clerjuste's fine baseline drive and layup put the visitors up by eight points with under a minute to go. But Victoria hit a three-pointer, forced a turnover, hit a pair of free throws, forced another turnover, and then got a step-back triple by Scott Kellum to tie it up with 17.8 seconds to go.
But as it turned out, Kellum's late shot only served to set the stage for the late Hillis heroics.
"I thought early on we didn't do a good job on the glass and that hurt us, and we obviously didn't do a real good job at closing, but we were fortunate enough to hit that shot and we'll happily take any road win in this league," Cougars head coach
Steve Burrows said. "Ben hit that shot for us, but I thought Greishe had an extremely solid game for us and did a great job on both ends."
Clerjuste had what was arguably his finest outing as a Cougar, shooting 9-for-12 from the field and finishing with a game-high and career-high 21 points.
Myles Hamilton (pictured) scored 17 for the Cougars, while Millar's 10-point, 11-rebound performance gave him his third double-double of the Canada West schedule. Hillis also ended up with 10 points for the U of R, which improves to 8-3 with the win.
Jordan Charles had a team-leading 18 points for Victoria, which also got a double-double from Jason Scully (14 points, 14 rebounds). The Vikes fall to 4-7 with the setback.
The Cougars and the Vikes will meet again on Saturday night (7:00 PST) at the Centre for Athletics, Recreation, and Special Abilities on the University of Victoria campus.
NOTES: With eight wins in their first 11 conference games, the Cougars have tied their best start in program history ... they've gone 8-3 to start the year on five other occasions, all during former head coach James Hillis's tenure and most recently during the 2005-06 season.
