A disastrous foul in the final seconds of the Mid-American Conference men’s basketball championship game in Cleveland helped Akron to victory and likely cost Kent State a trip to the NCAA Tournament.
Down by one point late in the game, the Kent State Flashes scored on a put-back bucket by Cli’Ron Hornbeak to take a 61-60 lead with 6.2 seconds remaining. Kent State’s Julius Rollins then intentionally committed a foul after the Akron inbound, seemingly unaware that his team was ahead.
Akron’s Greg Tribble then made a pair of free throws with five seconds remaining for a 62-61 lead. Kent State’s last-second shot attempt was off the mark.
OH NO KENT STATE 😬
They take the lead but didn’t know the score and commit a foul up 1 pic.twitter.com/fvJ90Sxjfs
— Action Network (@ActionNetworkHQ) March 17, 2024
“(Rollins) probably thought we were down one instead of up one,” Kent State coach Rob Senderoff said after the game when asked about the sequence.
“The thing I told (Rollins) — right now, this is probably the worst thing that’s ever happened to him,” Senderoff continued. “But if this is the worst thing that has ever happened to you when you’re 50 years old like I am, you’ve lived a pretty charmed life. Tomorrow the sun will come up. It will be a little cloudy for me and for our guys. But the sun will come up tomorrow.”
He called it a “great game” but said it was a “horrible, tough way to lose.”
“I feel really, really badly for our whole roster,” Senderoff said.
Senderoff also blamed himself for not calling a timeout after the Hornbeak basket.
“As I told the team, I should have called a timeout there. I do not blame Julius,” Senderoff told reporters. “There are 100 plays in the game, and that was just one of them.”
The loss dropped Kent State to 17-17 overall for the season, including an 8-10 conference record that made the Flashes the No. 8 seed in the MAC tournament. Kent State made the NCAA Tournament last season, where it lost to Indiana in the first round as a No. 13 seed.
Akron, the No. 2 seed at 13-5 in league play, improves to 24-10 under coach John Groce and will return to the NCAA Tournament for the second time in three seasons.
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(Photo: Ken Blaze / USA Today)
