Washington Hits Game Winner to Complete Comeback

Jesse Washington hit a three-pointer at the final buzzer to complete the comeback from being down nine points as the Greyhounds took a 72-70 victory over the National Park College Nighthawks Thursday at The Dog House in West Memphis, Arkansas. The shot came ironically after National Park hit a three-pointer at the buzzer in the first half to take a 33-30 halftime lead.

The Nighthawks began the second half with a 5-0 run and eventually got the lead to nine points on several occasions, the last of which was 54-45 at the 9:18 mark. But ASU Mid-South would claw its way back starting with a T.J. Stewart dunk on an assist from Braxtyn McCuien, and tied it at 54-54 on two Christian Thompson free throws with 6:12 remaining. The Greyhounds then took their first lead on an O.J. Marrs layup off a feed from Thompson with 5:48 left to play, but from there it was a dogfight as neither team led by more than three points the rest of the game that featured 4 ties and 11 lead changes in the final six minutes of play.

National Park got a steal and a layup at the 2:16 mark to take a 64-63 lead, but the Greyhounds would come back to score on an O.J. Marrs layup with 1:27 remaining. The Nighthawks then went back ahead 66-65 on a Quinntez Grimes 16-foot jumper with 1:07 left to play, and ASU Mid-South got fouled on the other end and went back up 67-66 with two Jesse Washington free throws with just 45.2 ticks on the clock. Grimes then found his way to the paint and hit a fall-away jumper from 12 feet to give National Park a 68-67 lead at the 32.0-second mark, and the Greyhounds would respond with a Christian Thompson layup with 18.6 seconds left to give the Greyhounds a 69-68 lead. But the Nighthawks' would get the benefit of a block/charge call with 4.8 seconds remaining, and Ja'Bryant Hill would sink both free throws despite three Greyhound timeouts. But Braxtyn McCuien would inbound the ball to Jailen Anderson who streaked down the court to find Jesse Washington on the left side, and after Washington's pump fake got a Nighthawk in the air, he calmly took a dribble to his left and released a three-pointer with 0.6 seconds on the clock, and the buzzer sounded just before the ball hit nothing but net.

The Greyhounds got the win despite shooting just 39.3% from the field and the Nighthawks hitting 50.0% of their field goals and 37.5% of their three-pointers as both teams hit 9 treys each. But ASU Mid-South dominated the boards and got 13 second chance points off 17 offensive rebounds while limiting National Park to just 1 offensive rebound to negate the off-shooting night.

Jesse Washington led all scorers with 24 points including going 6-of-14 from the three-point line, Christian Thompson hit for 14 points, and Jailen Anderson chipped in 10 points while all three players pulled down 7 rebounds each. Chris Martin scored 9 points off the bench, Braxtyn McCuien pulled down a game-high 12 rebounds to go with 4 points, and Anderson dished out a team-high 4 assists.

The Greyhounds travel to Harrison for a Saturday matchup at North Arkansas College at 4:00pm following the women's game at 2:00pm.

2022-23 NJCAA Region 2 Men's Basketball Standings