No. 6 UChicago Survives in Senior Day Thriller with Carnegie Mellon
The sixth-ranked University of Chicago men's basketball team survived on Sunday afternoon with a 76-74 overtime victory over Carnegie Mellon to wrap up their home schedule with a 10-1 record on their home floor. The overtime victory snapped an eight-game losing streak in games that have went to overtime.
Carnegie Mellon jumped out to a big lead early with a 15-7 run to open the game, but UChicago responded with an 11-0 run of their own thanks to six straight points from Nick Roper to take an 18-15 lead early in the game.
The lead would continue to go back and forth until a Noah Pit triple leveled the score at 28. The three would kick off a 14-4 run to end the first half, including back-to-back threes from Phillip Lawrence and Pit to end the half.
In the second half, UChicago stretched their lead to the largest of the game at 10 points with a 46-36 advantage. However, a 10-2 run for the Tartans would cut the lead to two. The lead would remain in the hands of the Maroons until 4:57 remaining when a Carnegie Mellon triple leveled the score at 57.
UChicago would immediately fight back with back-to-back triples by Shane Regan and Nick Roper would stretch the lead to 63-57, but they would not score a poitn in the final 3:40 to allow the Tartans to send the game into overtime.
Carnegie Mellon would score the opening bucket of overtime to lead for the first time since 3:59 to go in the first half, but UChicago once again hit back-to-back triples from Regan and Joe Berry to extend the lead to six. Five straight points for the Tartans would put Carnegie Mellon back in front until Phillip Lawrence hit the biggest shot of his career as he turned around, hit a fader through contact, and drilled the free throw to give UChicago a one point lead.
After another free throw for UChicago on the next possession, the Tartans would tie the game at 74 on a bucket inside with 38 seconds to go. On the ensuing possession, Noah Pit would miss a three, but Nick Roper came up huge with an offensive rebound. He was then fouled and hit both free throws to clinch the 76-74 victory for the Maroons.
Shane Regan led the team with 22 points and 6 assists while adding 8 rebounds. Nick Roper added a double-double in the win with 19 points and 10 rebounds. Joe Berry also finished in double figures with 11 points. Regan and Roper also finished a combined 20-24 from the free throw line with Regan going 10-14 and Roper going perfect at 10-10. Roper became the first University of Chicago player to not miss a free throw with over 10 attempts in a game since Collin Barthel in 2018.
With the win, the Maroons improve to 19-3 on the season and 9-2 in UAA play.