Editor’s note: The following is excerpted from sports editor Todd Golden’s Down In The Valley blog. It was written at 3 a.m. Sunday after Golden returned to Terre Haute after covering Indiana State’s 75-73 victory at Illinois State. Golden’s blog, updated regularly, can be read at blogs.tribstar.com/downinthevalley/.
I just got home after the drive from Normal, Ill. … and I can’t get to sleep.
Sportswriters — good ones anyway — pride themselves on being objective. We’re not fans, we’re not cheerleaders, we’re there to do a job. Most of the time, we do it coldly and matter-of-factly.
But we are human. Players, coaches and fans live for games like ISU’s 75-73 victory over Illinois State on Sunday. So do sportswriters. If you were geeked because you love the Sycamores, I was geeked because being able to chronicle games like that are what I live for and why I love what I do. I could run on the juice from a game like that for a few weeks.
That was an “I was there, when …” game you cherish having watched, whether you had a rooting interest in the game or not.
Someone on one of the ISU message boards asked why I thought [during the game’s live blog] that this might be the best ISU win I’ve covered. That person astutely pointed out the bizarre nature of the team over the last five years. ISU has packed a lot of all-timers into a short period of time.
ISU has had bigger comebacks since I’ve been on the beat. ISU has beaten bigger name foes. But I think this is one is the best (bumping the 2006 win at Southern Illinois) for a few reasons.
• For starters, this team had all of the markings of a squad circling the drain. Yes, ISU was close in most games during its seven-game losing streak, but whatever deficiency (usually turnovers) that cropped up in those losses was usually so glaringly fatal that it washed over whatever good ISU did.
The frustration of repeatedly coming close can be very damaging to any team and many, including yours truly, wondered whether the Sycamores had the gumption to keep fighting through it. Yes there’ve been close losses, but keep in mind that ISU is also 21 points away from being winless, so there’s a glass-half-full, glass-half-empty element in trying to deconstruct the Sycamores.
• ISU was undermanned. Losing Isiah Martin, especially against Illinois State’s rebounders, ratcheted up the degree of difficulty.
• Illinois State had not lost at home. Illinois State had already been beaten by the Sycamores, so it’s not as if ISU should have snuck up on them.
• Finally, the comeback itself. For 2 minutes, 23 seconds to end regulation, ISU reached basketball nirvana. The Sycamores, one of the most imperfect of teams over the course of 24 games, actually achieved perfection.
This wasn’t like ISU’s win at SIU in 2006, which ended the nation’s longest home-court winning streak and stopped an 11-game ISU losing streak. That was a slow-burn shocker in the sense that the Sycamores controlled the game for most of the second half. In that case, you were waiting for the other shoe to drop and it never did.
This wasn’t like the Jekyll-and-Hyde 2006 MVC Tourney win over Drake. It’s forgotten that ISU only trailed 19-10 at halftime of that game despite shooting 15.4 percent from the field in the first half.
This wasn’t even like a greater statistical comeback last season against Wichita State, when ISU trailed by 21 in the second half and 10 in the final minute. In that case, the Sycamores got plenty of help from a bumbling Shocker team.
Aside from Illinois State’s free throws — four misses out of five in the final two minutes — ISU had to do this one itself. Perfect or nothing, those were the stakes.
You so rarely see basketball perfection in any context, much less the challenges ISU faced — on the road, a 4-win team vs. 19-win team, Illinois State had a 12-point lead — you have to appreciate it in those rare instances you witness it. You know you may never see one like that again.
Overtime confirmed that the Sycamores had the grit to keep the pedal down, another trait that’s not been much seen from the Sycamores as ISU has a bad tendency to rest on its laurels. See its seven home losses after it has led, including three by double-digits, for evidence.
Of course, all of the 3s helped. Eight in a row. I’ve never seen anything like that, certainly not from a team on the road. Remember, Illinois State is the best 3-point defensive team in the conference.
ISU coach Kevin McKenna was asked in the postgame press conference if Jay Tunnell channeled Larry Bird. It looked to me like he channeled Marico Stinson from the 2006-2007 Drake game, and Tunnell nearly caught up to Stinson’s school-record nine 3-pointers the former Sycamore drained that December night at Hulman Center.
Eight of nine from 3-point range? Insane. It was lost in the shuffle of deadline when I did my story, but Tunnell did set the ISU record for single-game 3-point shooting percentage. His 88.8 percent performance knocks Michael Menser and Travis Inman out of the record book; both shot 85.7 percent in a game during their careers.
Tunnell’s season 3-point percentage went from .359 to .425 in one game. The eight 3s are a quarter of his season total of 31.
You know Tunnell was playing at another level when gasps rained down from the Redbird Arena faithful every time he touched the ball in the final minutes. You know he did something off-the-charts sublime if Illinois State coach Tim Jankovich felt the need to put swingman Osiris Eldridge on Tunnell to guard him after Tunnell made six 3-pointers in six minutes spanning regulation and overtime.
The thing of it is, Tunnell had already played arguably his best game of the season long before the 3s started pouring in. He had a double-double early in the second half and was battling in the paint with more grit than he has in recent games.
Harry Marshall ran the show like a pro. Every decision he made in the final 2:23 and overtime was dead-on. Marshall’s final shot was a gobsmacker. At 4 seconds, he was still out near midcourt. As he said in the paper, he read the defense and took the shot himself. From where I was sitting, I looked like a 3, but it was a long 2-pointer.
Just a stunner of a game.
In the big picture, does the comeback mitigate what’s now a five-win season? No. Does it mean ISU is suddenly OK? Not until we see what the response to this game is Wednesday at Hulman Center when Drake visits.
But for everything to go right in a season where nearly everything has gone wrong, this comeback stacks up as the best in five years.
And I still can’t get to sleep.
Todd Golden is the sports editor of the Tribune-Star. He can be reached at (812) 231-4272 or todd.golden@tribstar.com. Check out his blog at blogs.tribstar.com/downinthevalley
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