Vermont narrowly escaped a demoralizing upset loss to Albany in the America East Conference Tournament quarterfinals on Saturday. The top-seeded Catamounts almost saw their college basketball season come to an early end at the mercy of the 13-18 Great Danes.
Fortunately, the visitors were lights out from three free throw line.
Yes, that sounds contradictory. It would not typically be a good thing that the opposition cannot miss.
This was different.
Albany took a three-point lead on a pair of free throws with just over two minutes left. Vermont responded with two of their own.
The Danes were ahead 70-69 but missed three-straight opportunities to score and gave the ball back to the Catamounts, who immediately called a timeout. With the crowd behind him, T.J. Long knocked down a clutch triple from the corner to regain the lead. Burlington was on fire.
Both sides went back and forth for a moment.
Albany was eventually fouled. Ny’Mire Little went to the line for two free throws with 1.8 seconds left.
Down by three, its only opportunity to send the college basketball game to overtime was to make the first shot and intentionally miss the second. The Danes then needed to get a rebound and score on the putback. A lot of things needed to go right and it started with a miss.
Unfortunately, Little made his second shot.
Vermont survived and advanced. Albany saw its season come to a close because it went 10-for-10 from the charity stripe. It needed to go 9-for-10 with a miracle on the back end of the only miss.
Little couldn’t get the job done. He is too good of a free throw shooter.
The 26-6 Catamounts will host the semifinal round on Tuesday. They escaped because the other team was too good at making their free throws.