Mike Adras would have loved to have seen who the hero was Thursday night, but the NAU men's basketball head coach missed it.
With just more than 13 seconds left in double overtime of NAU's game against Portland State on Thursday night at the Walkup Skydome, Adras stood on his team's sideline after drawing up a play with his team down one point, 85-84.
Adras was focused on the No. 1 option for that play, Cameron Jones and the No. 2 option, Gabe Rogers. As a result, when point guard Julian Olubuyi inbounded the ball to the third option, DeAngelo Jones, Adras didn't catch it.
Had he been watching, he would have seen DeAngleo Jones convert on a layup with 11.3 seconds left to give NAU (12-13, 6-8 Big Sky Conference) a thrilling 86-85 win over the Vikings in double overtime.
"I wish I saw it," Adras said. "I drew something up in the timeout and I focused on option one, I focused on option two. The referee was standing right in front of me so I did not see the angle where Julian made the pass. I'll go home and enjoy the replay.
"I saw the ball go in the hoop and I didn't know who shot it. I didn't know if it was Josh (Lepley) or DeAngelo."
With 11.3 left, Portland State still had a chance to win the game and break the hearts of the Lumberjacks for the second straight year. Last year, Portland State outlasted NAU, 92-91, in four overtimes.
This time, though, Portland State didn't have one last piece of magic.
After the ball was knocked out of bounds with 1.6 seconds left, Portland State's Dominic Waters, who led all scorers with 29 points, couldn't hit a layup with Rogers defending him and the ball fell to the court as the final horn sounded, signaling a much-needed win for the Jacks.
"It was a great game. It was a lot like last year," Cameron Jones said. "After the second one, I told (Julius) Thomas, 'Are you ready to go (four) again?' And he said, 'Nah, I'm not really having that, I'm trying to get this game over with.' And I said, Yeah, I agree.'
"It was a pretty exciting game to be a part of, and even better when you come out with a victory."
From the final minute of regulation, the game featured non-stop twists and turns for both teams.
NAU held a 63-61 lead with less than a minute to play when the Vikings got the ball. Jamie Jones connected on a layup with 34.5 seconds left to the game at 63 apiece.
The Jacks had a crack to win it in regulation, but Cameron Jones' driving layup didn't drop and Nick Larson's tip-in attempt also didn't go, sending the game into overtime.
NAU again appeared to be in good shape, holding a 72-68 lead with 38 seconds remaining. But, Waters hit two free throws with 30 seconds left and Rogers missed the front-end of a 1-and-1 to give the Vikings the ball back with just less than 25 seconds on the clock.
Jamie Jones hit a layup with 14 seconds left and the Jacks threw the ball away on the ensuing inbound play when DeAngelo Jones' pass went a little too far for Olubuyi and the ball ended up in Waters' hands. Waters tossed it down low to Julian Thomas, who hit a layup to give the Vikings a 74-72 lead with five seconds remaining.
Adras called a timeout and Olubuyi made up for the turnover by going end-to-end and hitting a layup to tie the game. The junior from Houston was fouled on the play, but couldn't convert the free throw and the game headed to a second overtime.
"We had plenty of time left. Coach set up a great play and Julian made a great play making that layup," said Cameron Jones, who finished with a team-high 26 points on 11-of-19 shooting. "We're a resilient team. We could've put our heads down and said 'man, this game is over,' but we didn't. We wanted to win this game."
Added Larson, who pulled down a game-high 15 rebounds: "Once that guy stole the ball, everybody was down, and I tried to get them together and said, 'Look, there's still five seconds left, we could still win this.' Coach drew up a great play and Julian was able to execute that."
Rogers finished with a career-high 20 points in the win and Shane Johannsen finished with 11 points and eight rebounds before fouling out. DeAngelo Jones finished with 10 points and Olubuyi had a game-high eight assists to go with six points in the victory.
The win was an extremely important one for NAU, who came into the game mired in a four-game losing streak, with two of those losses coming in overtime.
At 6-8 in Big Sky play, NAU is now a half game up on Portland State for fifth place in the league. The Jacks also hold the tiebreaker against Portland State because they swept the season series.
NAU is also 1 1/2 games up on Eastern Washington in the sixth spot. The top six teams in the league qualify for the conference tournament.
"It's real big because the conference tournament's coming up and everybody's fighting for places," DeAngelo Jones said. "If we win out, we should make the tournament. We really control our own destiny, and that was the main thing, get the win."
NAU will return to action Saturday at home against Eastern Washington.
Daniel Berk can be reached at dberk@azdailysun.com or 556-2251.
