Scratching one out

With the score tied and 0.5 seconds left in the game, Damier Pitts stepped up to the free throw line. Alone, he took a deep breath and knew the game was on him.

The sophomore guard calmly sinked the two free throws and helped give the Herd a 90-88 win over Western Carolina in the College Basketball Insiders.com Tournament's opening round at the Cam Henderson Center on Tuesday night.

The free throws came from a technical foul charged to the Catamounts after forward Harouna Mutumbo tried to call a timeout. Too bad for him, the team had no timeouts.

Pitts, who finished with a game high 24 points, said as he stepped to the line in front of 5,003 fans, the pressure was not present.

"I don't really feel any pressure stepping to the free-throw line," Pitts said. "But just like any other free throw, I just stepped up to the line and didn't really pay attention to the score.I just stepped up and knocked them down."

But the way the game ended didn't match the way the game started for Marshall. As the Herd jumped out to a 31-24 lead, Western Carolina would not go away and rallied to tie the score at 37 at halftime.

Pitts said the team didn't really come out at the start of the game the way they needed to win the game.

"I don't think we had the energy we needed in the beginning," Pitts said. "We were lackadaisical on defense. I just think we need to get our jitters out from the conference tournament and get back to the way we used to play."

But in the second half, the Catamounts put a bigger scare into the Herd, pulling ahead by four with 13:53 left in the game.

But then Marshall head coach Donnie Jones went to a smaller lineup, pulling freshman Hassan Whiteside and senior Tyler Wilkerson.

Jones said when he sent the smaller lineup out, he was looking for the five guys on the team that gave him the most energy.

"We played small ball with them," Jones said. "They were out playing us and out scraping us and out competing us. I was just trying to find five guys who were going to play hard. And we just kept looking for a combination and we found it."

Probably bringing the most energy to the game was sophomore Dago Pena. The Dominican Republic native had 18 points on 6-7 shooting.

Pena said when the team needed energy, he would be the man to put a spark in the Herd.

"That's what I like to do, be the energy man," Pena said. "We needed energy at the end and we got it going. That's how we stepped it up and got the lead."

Behind Pena and Pitts, the Herd jumped out to a 12-point lead with less than five minutes left to play.

But the Catamounts would not die.

Behind its leading scorer, Jake Robinson, Western Carolina got hot from behind the arc after being held without a 3-pointer for most of the second half.

It seemed like no matter what the Herd did, Robinson was able to answer with a barrage of threes.

"They were hitting tough shots," Pena said. "We stepped it up. We were ready for it."

But to put it into overtime, it wasn't Robinson, it was All-Southern Conference Team's Brandon Giles' 3-pointer that tied the score with six seconds left.

The Herd thought the game was going into overtime after the ruckus on the court, but Jones said his team was fortunate to get out of the game with a win.

"We got fortunate with the call," Jones said. "You hate to lose a game that way, but you say you hate to win a game that way because it's such a fine game that was played, but the officials made the right call."

Western Carolina head coach Larry Hunter said his team was aware they had no timeouts left. It was most likely the heat of the moment that caused the lapse in thought.

"We were aware," Hunter said on the awareness of timeouts. "We communicated about it, but I guess not good enough."

With the victory, Marshall will move on in the CIT and will host a quarterfinal game on Monday. The Herd will find out its opponent on Friday.

The tournament is really being panned out due more to location than seeding and Jones said that while it' not the NCAA Tournament, it will get the Herd ready for the future.

"We need to know that we are fortunate to be in this tournament," Jones said. "We need to learn how to play in postseason. It's a big step for us."

But the Herd knows it is special that it can keep playing, especially in front of  its home fans.

"We get to play in front of our hometown, and that's always a good thing," Pitts said. "We get to keep playing basketball, and that's what we love to do. Keep playing and keep rolling."

GAME NOTES: This is the first postseason win for Marshall since 1967 NIT. That breaks a string of nine-straight postseason losses...Senior Darryl Merthie tied Skip Henderson (1984-88) for the school record in career games played with 125. Merthie had 14 points in the win... Whiteside has blocked 179 shots this season, the fifth most in a season by a Division I player...Pitts has now made 15 free throws in a game twice this season (other against UCF Feb. 27) and his 93.8 percent free throw performance is the fifth best in a game in school history...The Herd were outscored in the paint 42-32...Chris Lutz only played 15 minutes because of a strained hamstring.

Contact Kyle Hobstetter at hobstetter@marshall.edu.