NASHVILLE - Thirty-one-point-five seconds remained. The hometown Vanderbilt Commodores owned the ball. The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Mocs owned the lead by a single point.
This is the moment so many Memorial Gym memories come to be. The moment the locals refer to as Memorial Gym magic. Only this time it seemed as if the Mocs had defeated it.
The Commodores' Matthew Fisher-Davis drove and missed. UTC point guard Greg Pryor came up with the loose ball and was fouled, setting up a one-and-one of free throws that could put the visitors up three points. A fraction more than 10 seconds remained.
Only Pryor, who entered this game hitting 79 percent of his free throws, missed the front end. And 7-foot Vanderbilt senior Luke Kornet launched a 3-pointer off the deep left wing on the other end. And magically - maddeningly, if you're a UTC fan - it dropped.
Thus did the Mocs fall to 8-3 for the season as the confounding Commodores rose to 6-5. Thus does a chance for UTC to lay claim to being the best team in the state - at least where the Southeastern Conference is concerned - come to an end, since the Mocs previously had beaten Tennessee on its home court.
Instead, this will be the one that got away.
"It stings, it hurts," said UTC coach Matt McCall.
Fortunately, the Mocs have a home game against Jacksonville State at 2 p.m. Wednesday to wipe the bad taste from their mouths heading into Christmas break.
Ah, but McCall might say, my kingdom for two free throws.
"I thought we played well enough to win," he said afterward, a thought repeated by many a coach who's fallen by a thread in this building, often inside the final minute.
"I'm proud of our guys. We did what we wanted to do."
In a way - in most ways, actually - the Mocs indeed did. They hit nearly 54 percent from the floor. They outscored Vanderbilt 44-28 in the paint. They outrebounded the home team by six - 33-27. They seemed the quicker squad and more talented squad throughout, even though the Commodores did win the second-chance-points battle, 13-7.
But this is also the magic of Memorial. Vandy junior guard Riley LaChance got seven points all night. He got five of them in a 30-second flurry that tied the game at 68 - hitting two free throws, then a long 3-pointer.
So it went the way these games often do in this building. It went for the home team, which managed to attempt 10 more free throws despite attempting 10 more 3-pointers, a stat that rarely happens. And at least partly because VU hit 26 of those 29 free throws, it prevailed.
Yet it wasn't like the Mocs turned as ugly as Charlie Brown's Christmas tree down the stretch. They led most of the second half. And twice when the Commodores tied it late, UTC took back the lead.
But after hitting 8 of 10 free throws in the first half, the Mocs missed 4 of 9 in the final period. They turned it over seven times in each half, which meant they committed three more turnovers for the game despite being the quicker, more aggressive team.
Still, they almost pulled it off against a Vanderbilt team many felt tough enough to make the NCAA tournament at season's dawn.
But in the end, it came down to a shot the Commodores have now made at least one of in 975 straight games. Vandy, Princeton and UNLV remain the only schools to have hit at least one 3 in every game since the 3-pointer came into play during the 1986-87 season.
So there was Kornet on the left wing, hitting only 20 percent from the bonus line for the season but having hit two of five as the game clock ticked under five seconds. According to his coach, Bryce Drew, he was the first option on the play.
The first option let it go without hesitation. Swish.
The Mocs had 2.9 seconds to go the length of the court, but Tre McLean ran out of time before he could launch.
"Luke was hitting 20 percent on 3s," McCall lamented. "Tonight he was 3-of-6."
Memorial Magic strikes again.
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com