DENVER – Ra'Shawn Langston.
One-on-one.
It's not an even proposition.
"Ra'Shawn has been doing this since he was 6 or 7 years old," MSU Denver coach
Michael Bahl said. "He has an uncanny ability to make shots. I'm glad we had him tonight."
Langston took his defender towards the lane, used an unhurried crossover dribble to get closer to the goal, then waited, patiently, to shoot a one-handed shot from about 10 feet out.
Bucket.
It broke a 68-68 tie with 1.3 seconds to go.
And the Roadrunners added a free throw and a sigh of relief in posting a 71-68 victory Saturday night over Concordia-St. Paul (Minn.) to improve to 5-0.
"I've been working on my one-on-one game since I got here, and he (Bahl) said he trusted me," Langston said. "So I had to get the shot up."
Said Bahl: "We got the matchup we wanted, and we said, 'Go make a play, and either we're going to win it now or we're going to overtime.' I thought he did a great job of taking the shot clock down as far as we wanted. And give him credit, he made a tough shot."
The go-ahead score capped a 33-point night for Langston, who had scored more than 1,500 points between junior college and Division I before joining the Roadrunners this season. The 6-foot-3 guard made 14 of 23 from the field, including 3 of 7 from 3-point range.
"Wow," teammate
Laolu Oke said. "He's a helluva player. I told everybody that at the beginning of the season. Nothing unexpected. I knew he was capable of this."
Of course Oke did his thing again with 17 points and 16 rebounds for his ninth straight double-double dating to last season. He also stole the inbounds pass after Langston's go-ahead score, and hit 1 of 2 free throws after being fouled. The Golden Bears were unable to get a quality attempt in the final second.
Concordia-St. Paul clearly identified Oke's status as one of the best rebounders in NCAA Division II (he ranked second with 14.0 per game coming into the contest), and focused on keeping him off the glass.
But Oke got boards anyway.
"I think they probably followed their scout really well," Oke said. "They were doubling in the post and being really aggressive on their box outs. They were a tough team that played well."
Oke's last rebound came on the offensive end with 16 seconds left. It led to a timeout and the chance to set up for Langston's late heroics.
Concordia-St. Paul (1-6), shooting just 28.4 percent from 3 for the season coming into the game, knocked down 7 of its first 11 from long range and led by as many as 10 points (39-29) before settling for a 39-32 halftime lead.
"They were hitting in the first half, and part of it was on us – they were getting all the 50-50 balls, getting offensive rebounds and that led to open 3s, and they were knocking them down," Oke said.
The Golden Bears kept the lead for nearly seven minutes to start the second half, and rebuilt it to 56-50 with 9:44 to go, led 63-60 with 5:26 left and took their final lead at 68-67 with 1:27 to go.
"We can live with a lot of things offensively if we play as hard as we did defensively – especially in the second half," Bahl said. "We held a team to 29 points and we got stops when we needed to get stops."
And Langston got a bucket when they needed a bucket.
"We have a lot of scorers," Langston said. "And every night, somebody is going to be off. But we've got enough to back that up. Literally everybody on our roster can score."
