A few months ago
Mike Ray was a quitter, in many people's minds. Today, he's a hero.
The Archer City senior zipped in a 25-footer with four zeroes flashing on the Ligon Coliseum clock Monday night to lift Midwestern State past Paul Quinn College 90-89 and into the District 8 finals for the seventh straight year.
The 4,000 fans went crazy and flooded the coliseum floor when Ray popped in the winner. A few moments later the craziness got a bit crazier when it was announced that Wayland Baptist had defeated Texas Wesleyan 60-59 in Fort Worth and the Pioneers will have to come to the Dome Wednesday night for the finals and a game that will determine the district's representative in the NAIA national tournament next week in Kansas City.
Ray, who quit the squad for a few days in late December, had already hit what many people thought was the winning basket, but that 18-footer was wiped out by an official, who said an MSU player had called for a timeout. The Tigers' Leonard Vanduring had muscled his way underneath for a layup with five seconds to go, and the official said the Indians had called for a timeout before getting the ball inbounds to Ray. However, he couldn't tell coach Gerald Stockton which player had asked for the huddle.
So the Indians got the ball out of bounds with four seconds to go and the length of the court in front of them.
Ricky Cobb got it in to Ray, who drove down just above the circle and fired home the biggest bucket of his basketball career.
"You know me, I don't ever try to pick out one particular player to take the shot," a happy Stockton said afterwards. "I did tell them during the timeout if they could get the ball to Cullen (Mayfield), let him take it and go."
Last year with Paul Quinn leading by one and six second seconds to go, Mayfield got the ball and slipped down. It was a costly slip that ended the Tribe's season and sent Paul Quinn, a 92-89 winner, on to Kansas City.
The game was very similar to last year's. The only difference was this time Stockton was the one grinning from one ear to the other, while PQC coach Wesley "Undertaker" Boyd was looking like someone told him they'd just canceled a $5,000 funeral.
"It was about the same pattern as last year," Stockton admitted." They put that press on us and everything that happened went wrong. But our team this year is a bunch of fighters. They get out there play on guts and you've just got to give them credit for staying in there and pulling this one out. They earned what they got."
Last year, if you remember, MSU blew a 10-point lead with three minutes to go. Monday night the Indians were ahead by nine two different times in the second half, only to have the quick Tigers fight back to take the lead.
The last nine-point lead came with 3:20 to go and could have reached 10 if Cobb hadn't missed the free throw on a try for a three-point play. Cobb wasn't the only one missing free throws, however. Part of the reason Paul Quinn made it so close was that both Teddy Brigham and
Joe Cotton missed the front ends of one-and-ones and Cobb misfired on the first of a two-shot foul in the last 52 seconds.
"We're not going to hit 10 of 21 from the line like we did tonight many times this season," Stockton said. "We're one of the top free throw shooting teams in the nation and we couldn't hit them when we needed them most there at the end. We had to change the rims today, but I don't if it was that or just the excitement that caused us to miss so many."
After Brigham missed his free one, Robert Coleman raced down and hit a 15-footer. Then Coleman made a steal as MSU tried to get the ball downcourt and passed off to Vanduring who hit from underneath to tie it up at 87-all with 18 seconds to go.
Cotton was fouled and missed the first of a one-and-one, but the ball bounced to Cobb for the rebound and the 6-8 freshman drew a foul. He missed the first and hit the second to give the Tribe an 88-87 lead with 15 seconds left.
That's when Boyd called timeout and Paul Quinn came back to take the lead on Vanduring's bucket with four seconds left. The next shot that counted was Ray's and it counted much more than any of the rest.
One big difference that went in MSU favor this year was the absence of Lorenza "Frog" Scott. The 6-5 Houston junior, deadly all night from the baseline, drew his fifth foul at 5:41 to go when Jud Holmes took the ball right at him and drew a blocking call. Scott still finished as the game's top point man with 32.
"That was planned," Stockton said of Scott's picking up his fifth foul. "We planned to take it right at him and make him foul. With him out of the game, it allowed us to change our defense in the last five minutes. Lorenza Scott makes you go get him and still hits from the corners. We were able to play our 11 zone with him out of there."
"The whole ball game," Undertaker answered when asked what Scott's absence meant to his team. "From the time he went out, it was a different ball game offensively for us."
Brigham came out smoking in the early going, grabbing the game's first four rebounds and scoring nine points in the first four minutes, two on tipins. However, the MSU junior picked up two quick fouls in the opening three minutes and was nailed with his third 8:38 before intermission. He sat out more than 15 minutes before returning to the lineup with 12:59 remaining in the game.
Midwestern took a 40-39 halftime lead and Mayfield almost singlehandedly upped the margin to nine points in the first seven minutes of the second half. The Indians outscored the Tigers 16-6 in the early moments of the second half and Mayfield accounted for 14 of those points.
The 5-9 senior guard hit from 20 feet, scored a layup of a Cobb assist, hit from 15 and then from 18 for four straight buckets. The following a basket inside by Cobb, Mayfield scored another layup off a Cobb steal and assist, made a swipe of his own and drove for a layup and then banged one home from the baseline.
Though Ray was the hero with the last-second shot, Mayfield was the key in the second half. He hit 13 of 16 from the floor in the game to lead the Midwestern scoring attack with 28.
Cobb had another sparkling performance, hitting 10 of 15 for 21 points and hauling down a dozen rebounds. MSU outrebounded the Tigers 41-24. Brigham finished with 15, Holmes 13 and Ray nine.
MSU is now 22-17 for the year and on a three-game win streak.
TICKET INFORMATION: Reserved, general admission and student tickets for the MSU-Wayland game are on sale from 5-9 p.m. today and from 8 a.m.-4 p.m. Wednesday at the MSU ticket office in Ligon Coliseum.
Indians survive Tiger comeback
By Doug Brown
Wichita Falls Times Staff Sports Writer
Eyewitnesses will swear that the roof of D.L. Ligon Coliseum hit the proverbial cloud nine.
It was the kind of game saved for Hollywood, if not made there. It was a game that may go down in Midwestern State basketball history as the most action-packed battle ever staged under the Dome. And it was the kind of game that had two winners -- only one was eliminated from playoff competition until next year.
"Ain't never won a game like that before," an exasperated Teddy Brigham said following The Tribe's 90-89 victory over Paul Quinn in which
Mike Ray pumped in a 25-footer at the buzzer to send the Indians into the NAIA District 8 finals for the seventh straight season.
"I just brought it down and put it up. Cullen (Mayfield) was supposed to get the ball and bring it down or pass it off, but they (PQ defenders) were on him so I came up and got the ball. It (the shot) felt good. I just knew it was in," Ray said after the thriller.
Moments earlier, Ray had connected on a shot from 20 feet that appeared to give the Indians a one-point lead with four second remaining. But the officials had whistled the play dead because an MSU player apparently had called time out.
So Ray just did it again and 4,000 screaming voices let it all out.
The shot will be remembered in the minds of MSU fans for a long time, but it was another comeback by the scrappy PQC Tigers that forced Ray's theatrics.
"I had a lot of flashbacks through the whole game," MSU leading scorer
Cullen Mayfield said, remembering the 10-point lead that evaporated on the Indians against the very same Tigers in last year's district finals.
"It started scaring me. I started thinking we were jinxed,"
Judson Holmes said of the PQC comeback. "But it just wouldn't happen. It's meant for us. I think we're going to Kansas City (the national tournament). I don't think there is anything that can stop us now."
Lorenza Scott, the Tigers' sharp-shooter who led everybody with 32 points before fouling out with 5:41 left in the contest, was on the losing side this time around, but the soft-spoken star added, "It's kind of a heart-breaker, but you win some like that and you lose some like that."
Scott, who had to watch the remainder of the game from the bench after drawing two marginal fouls (his fourth and fifth) down the stretch, said "it was hard to sit there on the bench. You have a bad feeling inside you and you want to be out there helping."
Still, with their leader on the bench, Paul Quinn made a comeback.
"That's been a characteristic of our team. We seem to play better when we're behind because we know how well we have to play. We hustle a little harder," Scott added.
"We knew that was the kind of team Quinn was. They can come back in a jiffy," MSU's freshman post
Ricky Cobb, who warmed up in the second half to end the night with 21 points and a game-high 12 rebounds, added.
Mayfield was the other Indian in the 20-point club, popping the nets for 28. "The first half it seemed like nobody else was doing well and Teddy and Jud were in foul trouble so I tried to shoot more in the second half," Mayfield added.
Had the Tribe lost, Brigham probably would have been the most frustrated. After a quick start that included four rebounds in the first three minutes of play, the 6-3 junior grabbed three first-half fouls and had to sit a spell. When he came back midway through the second half, we couldn't buy a bucket, much less hit one.
"I felt I couldn't charge the boards. I couldn't go in there like I usually do. I guess I couldn't be as aggressive as I wanted.
"I was just happy when Mike hit that shot," Brigham said.
Probably the biggest reason for the happiness in the locker room was the fact that for four seniors, it was still money time.
"If I'd missed it was over. It was my last shot ever (in college ball)," Ray said when explaining why they were his biggest points ever.
