SAN ANTONIO — Southwestern men's basketball ended its weekend at the Trinity Thanksgiving Classic in exciting fashion, snapping fans out of any lingering tryptophan-induced sluggishness with a buzzer-beating layup for the 78-76 win over the Birmingham-Southern Panthers.
The Pirates showed sharper execution down the stretch than the previous game, overcoming a seven-point deficit created by Birmingham-Southern's Evan Sigler's jump shot with 3:01 remaining to give the Panthers a 72-65 lead.
Over the final three minutes, Southwestern reeled off a 13-6 run, hitting 5-for-6 from the field, including 2-for-2 from 3-point range, assisting on three of its five makes to just one turnover and hitting 1-for-2 from the free-throw line. Kyle Poerschke and Jacob Hester combined for all 13 points, with Poerschke sparking the run with his first of three layups over the final stretch while Hester hit a pair of 3-pointers and a free throw.
Hester's final 3-pointer tied the game at 76 with seven seconds remaining, coming off a Chris Smith, Jr. off-ball screen, using one dribble and a pump-fake to create space to drain the jumper.
On the ensuing inbounds, Josh Jones pressured Birmingham-Southern's Cameron Glover the entire length of the floor, forcing the Panthers' point guard too far to the sideline on a designed halfcourt screen and drawing an offensive foul on the illegal screen to give the Pirates the ball with 3.8 seconds remaining.
Southwestern head coach Connor Kuykendall and his coaching staff have drawn up effective inbound plays out of timeouts all season, creating open 3-pointers and lobs. However, with less than four seconds remaining and the ball being inbound just past halfcourt, the moment presented a unique situation.
Kuykendall and the Pirates used Birmingham-Southern's aggressiveness against them. With the Panthers defending the length of the floor, Kuykendall stacked three Pirates in the middle as a decoy, with Poerschke isolated on the other end of the court.
Jones delivered a perfect pass to Poerschke, who went to the rim in a hurry but showed enough patience to deliver a shot fake to send two trailing Panthers flying by him to create the open layup for the win.
Poerschke finished with 15 points on an efficient 7-for-12 shooting and a team-high seven rebounds. Center Brock Luechtefeld led Southwestern with a career-high 18 points on 8-for-11 shooting with six rebounds and two blocks. Hester scored 14 points on 4-for-6 shooting, including 3-for-4 from deep to go with four assists. Preston Hannah came off the bench to score 11 points on seven shots with two steals.
Southwestern shot 31-for-60 from the field (51.7 percent), including 6-for-14 (42.9 percent) from the 3-point line. Birmingham-Southern shot just 26-for-68 (38.2 percent) with a 10-for-33 (30.3 percent) performance from deep.
With the win, Southwestern improves to 3-6. The Pirates will pause its regular-season play with a pair of road exhibitions against NCAA Division I schools. Southwestern will face Texas A&M-Corpus Christi on Saturday, Dec. 4, and Texas State on Sunday, Dec. 12.
