Monday, November 26, 2001

Last-minute heroics lift FIU past Indiana-Purdue Fort Wayne, 82-80

ab Fisher’s layup off a steal with 44 seconds remaining put FIU up, 80-79, and the Golden Panthers held on for an 82-80 men’s basketball victory over Indiana-Purdue Fort Wayne Monday night in Miami.

A pair of Haven Jackson free throws with 15.6 seconds remaining extended the lead to 82-79. But with 3.7 seconds left, IPFW’s Deangelo Woodall was fouled and given two free throws. He made the first, cutting the lead to 82-80, then missed the second. Fort Wayne’s Jeremy King grabbed the rebound and attempted a game-tying layup that was blocked by FIU’s Taurance Johnson.

FIU was awarded possession, but with 0.3 seconds left, Carlos Morban was called for an offensive foul and the Mastodons had one final chance. But FIU’s Chris Carter swatted away the inbounds pass as the clock expired and the Golden Panthers hung on for the victory.

John Boney came off the bench to lead FIU with 16 points while Johnson and Rodrigo Viegas added 14 points apiece as the Golden Panthers raised their season record to 4-1. Johnson also had three blocks and three steals in 17 minutes.

Nick Wise led all scorers with 31 points for the first-year Division I IPFW squad that fell to 0-4. John Watkins had 16 points and Ric Wyand collected 10 rebounds in a losing effort.

The Mastodons jumped out to the early lead, up 13-6 with 15:45 left in the first half on a Wise jumper before FIU caught up and held a 41-39 lead on a Viegas bucket with 39 seconds left. But a Wise three-point basket with 27 seconds to go, his third of five on the game, gave IPFW a 42-42 advantage at the break.

The second half was just as close as there were five ties and six lead changes, the biggest of which was the steal and subsequent bucket by Fisher in the closing minute.

“I would have liked to have seen us do things a little more crisper tonight, but we might have been taking a peak ahead,” said FIU head coach Donnie Marsh whose team plays its next six games on the road beginning this Friday at Auburn.

“I give Fort Wayne a huge amount of credit because they played hard. All the tapes we watched told us that they were going to come after us. They weren’t going to buckle. They weren’t going to fold. They stayed in and forced us to step to the level that they had established. Thank goodness we were able to reach that level and surpass it.”

Both teams shot extremely well from the field. IPFW shot a .545 FG% that included 10 of 22 from beyond the three-point arc. FIU shot almost as well, posting a .544 FG%, despite hitting only 1 of 8 from long range.

As well as both teams shot from the field, the opposite was true at the free throw line. Fort Wayne hit on just .588 (10 of 17) from the charity stripe while FIU kept the game close by converting just 19 of 33 (.576) from the foul line.