Andrean senior James Hudson got the ball near half court with seven seconds left in overtime and the game tied at 54-54.
“I was going to attack,” he said. “But I looked at the clock and didn’t have enough time.”
So he moved to the middle of the court and squared up for a 30-footer — the last shot he’ll take on his home court.
Swish.
“In our walk-through, we practiced those kind of shots,” Hudson said. “I guess it paid off.”
Big time. Hudson’s 3-pointer beat the buzzer and clinched Andrean’s 57-54 overtime victory over Bishop Noll in the regular-season finale for both teams.
Hudson — who averages a team-leading 16 points for the 59ers (15-8)— was 0-for-6 before that basket. But he never doubted the final shot.
“Every single game, I write ‘confidence’ on my wrist,” Hudson said while holding up the taped left wrist bearing that word. “When we got into the locker room, everybody told me to keep shooting and good things were going to happen.”
His coach wasn’t quite as optimistic when the shot left Hudson’s hand.
“I thought we’d go into double overtime and keep playing,” Andrean coach Brad Stangel said. “And if it’s an air ball, we had two guys under the basket for a rebound. But we got the ball to a kid who set his feet, was looking at the rim and made a shot.”
Bishop Noll (10-12) was led by a game-high 24 points from junior Brandon Scott, who scored 17 points in the second half to help the Warriors rally from a 31-21 halftime deficit.
Noll had a chance to win at the end of regulation but could not score.
“They switched on what we were looking for and blew it up,” Warriors coach Josh Belluomini said. “It was a good play by them.”O
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And when his defense had to make a stop at the end of OT, Belluomini thought his players handled it well.
“Look at the shot (Hudson) hit,” Belluomini said. “We played good defense. Sometimes it just doesn’t fall your way.”
Before Hudson’s heroics at the end, senior Curtis Jones kept Andrean in the game with a team-high 19 points, including two crucial baskets in the final minutes of regulation.
Jones missed nearly a month this season with a high ankle sprain, but Stangel said this version of Jones looked more familiar.
“That looks like the Curtis we had last year and at the beginning of this year,” Stangel said. “This is a good time of year for him to start playing well again.”
Dave Melton is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.