Tuesday night, the men’s basketball team lost a heartbreaking game against the eleventh ranked team in the nation Midwestern State 79-78.

The Wildcats came roaring back from a twenty-point deficit in the second half, aided by Midwestern State missing thirteen free throws down the stretch. As time expired, junior guard Antonio Bell hit the shot of his life from long distance to tie the game at 78-78 in what appeared to be the end of regulation.

“I knew I had a chance to make a tough shot because I tried to draw a foul first.” Bell said. “But the shot felt really good. I wanted to Midwestern to know the game wasn’t over because we knew it wasn’t over and kept fighting.”

After a long meeting by the officials, a technical foul was assessed to number #24 Da-Juan Cooper, although coaches and players on both sides were in agreement that the technical foul should have been handed out to #14 Bell, but it appears the officials made a mistake on which player they were actually punishing.

In most circumstances, a buzzer-beating three pointer to tie the game will result in overtime, regardless of any fouls called after the clock hits triple zeros. However, with the use of video replay, it was determined that a miniscule amount of time was left on the clock after ACU tied the game, so Midwestern State would get their two technical foul shots to end regulation.

“The officials said there was still some time left on the clock.” Head coach Joe Golding said. “They said there was .17 seconds left on the clock when the ball went in the hoop, so that is why the foul shots were before overtime.”

Despite a sour ending for the ‘Cats, effort on both ends of the court in the second half by ACU was astounding, and showed that they can play with anyone in the LoneStar Conference.

“That has been our team all year, we show heart and we battle.” Golding said. “We are sitting right around .500, we have fought all year, that is the way we play.”

The Wildcats struggled to get anything going in the first half, digging themselves a nineteen-point hole in the first twenty minutes of action.

“The frustrating thing is how bad we played in the first half.” Golding said. “If we don’t turn the ball over fourteen times in the first half, and we just had a ten minute segment there where we just played awful. But give out guys credit, we continued to fight.”

Kendall Durant took over the game down the stretch; scoring fourteen of his twenty-one points in the second half.  Cooper also had a tremendous game for the Wildcats, pulling down several big rebounds and playing lock-down defense in the last four minutes of the game.

The Wildcats will be back in action Saturday afternoon when the travel to Lawton, Oklahoma to take on Cameron University at 4 p.m.