Utah Valley’s journey towards its first NCAA Tournament appearance in men’s basketball is going to have to wait another year.
How the Wolverines lost, too, is going to leave a bitter taste for a long time.
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UVU came agonizingly close late Saturday night before falling 63-61 to Cal Baptist in the WAC tournament championship game at Orleans Arena in Las Vegas.
The Wolverines (25-8), the WAC regular-season champions, held a six-point lead with 2:22 to play, but league player of the year Dominique Daniels Jr. overcame a poor shooting night and hit three 3-pointers in the final 1:52, including the go-ahead score with 14.6 seconds to play.
The Wolverines took a timeout after Daniels’ final 3 of the night gave Cal Baptist (25-8) the 63-61 lead and drew up a play that appeared headed for success and would force overtime.
Trevan Leonhardt drove to the hoop and drew in a pair of defenders, then threw a backside lob to Isaac Davis.
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Davis, though, had the dunk attempt miss long, glancing off the back of the rim, with two seconds on the clock.
The Lancers grabbed the rebound, and the celebration was on for Cal Baptist — while the heartbreak was just beginning for UVU.
“It hurts. It hurts,” UVU coach Todd Phillips said to begin his postgame press conference. “That’s the beauty about sports — you give your all and I thought we played a really good game, we had a great game plan by the coaches and they made one more play, made a couple big plays at the end there to win it.”
It was the second straight season that UVU lost in the WAC tournament championship, with an automatic bid to the NCAAs there for the taking.
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Saturday’s loss also ensured that UVU’s search for its first NCAA Tournament appearance in the sport will be at 22 years and counting, since the Wolverines jumped to the Division I level in the 2004-05 season.
Daniels, despite shooting 7 of 25, scored a game-high 23 points to lead three Cal Baptist scorers in double-figures. He also had three assists, two steals, a rebound and a blocked shot.
The talented senior guard kept a positive mindset, even as the missed shots piled up, including his final miss with 3:23 to play, a shot that could have made it a two-point game.
“I had told myself going back down during live play, anything can happen in March,” Daniels said. “And the next three plays, I got three buckets for us to win. And like I said, anything can happen in March. That’s what I was telling myself throughout those possessions of the game.”
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Jackson Holcombe paced UVU with 18 points, three rebounds, two steals, an assist and a block, while Davis added 12 points, six rebounds and two steals.
Cal Baptist will find out Sunday who it will play in the NCAA Tournament, while UVU is likely headed back to the NIT for the fourth time overall and third in the past four seasons.
Both teams went into the night knowing that the winner would be making history, with the victor earning the WAC’s automatic NCAA bid and the school’s first NCAA Tournament appearance in program history.
The battle between Utah Valley and Cal Baptist lived up to the high-stakes billing.
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“Utah Valley’s got a great team and obviously they took us into some deep, deep water tonight. We were treading, but we were able to keep our heads just above it. And it was fueled by belief of these guys and then they went out and made incredible plays, and that’s what it takes in March,” Cal Baptist coach Rick Croy said.
The Lancers landed the first blow of the night, hitting four early 3-pointers to build a 14-4 lead.
UVU countered and eventually whittled its deficit down before the teams headed into halftime tied at 26-26.
The contest continued to be tight throughout the second half, though the Wolverines gave themselves some breathing room with about five minutes remaining, as UVU turned a 52-51 deficit into a 59-52 lead.
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Holcombe started the 8-0 run with a short jumper, then Sherman Weatherspoon IV hit his second 3 of the night from the corner to put the Wolverines up four.
Holcombe later added an and-1 to push the lead to seven.
Behind Daniels, though, Cal Baptist didn’t go away.
With 2:22 to play, Holcombe made 1 of 2 free throws — hitting the first before missing the second — to give Utah Valley a 60-54 lead.
That’s when Daniels, who to that point was shooting 4 of 22, caught fire.
First, he nailed a 3 with 1:52 left to cut the deficit in half, then after an empty UVU possession, Daniels drilled a stepback 3 at the 1:16 mark to tie the game.
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UVU briefly retook the lead when Holcombe was fouled and hit 1 of 2 free throws again with 39 seconds remaining.
Holcombe was 6 of 12 from the free-throw line, and the Wolverines were 14 of 24 as a team from the stripe, while Cal Baptist finished 10 of 11, a major factor in the contest.
When the Lancers took back possession down one, Daniels nearly lost his dribble before gaining control back. Then, with 14.6 seconds remaining, he lined up a 3-point shot from straightaway and hit nothing but net.
That set up the final play, and another heartbreaking WAC tournament finish for the Wolverines, who had gone 0-6 in WAC tournament semifinals before last season’s breakthrough to the title game.
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“It was a great crowd. We’ve had great crowds all year and they come down and support us here in Vegas, so really grateful for them and what they did,” Phillips said.
“I think they got to witness a heck of a ball game … that probably should have went to overtime and had some more game there. We gotta finish that last shot, but that’s college basketball, right? That’s college basketball and what it is. Just can’t say enough of our guys and what they did tonight and how well they played.”
It was the final WAC basketball game — the league is rebranding to the United Athletic Conference this summer, and UVU and Cal Baptist are both joining the Big West Conference in July.
That means the Wolverines will never have their chance to get some redemption for the snakebitten nature of their experiences in the WAC tournament.
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The Wolverines outshot Cal Baptist from the field, 44% to 37.9%, but the Lancers made nine 3-pointers to three for UVU.
The Wolverines were able to get to the free-throw line 13 more times, but their season-long struggles caught up to them in Vegas.
Leonhardt nearly had a triple-double for UVU, with 6 points, 10 rebounds and eight assists, while also drawing the defensive assignment against Daniels.
“He did a great job and that’s hard. He played, I think Dom played 40, Trev played 40, two great point guards going at it — Trev does what Trev does,” Phillips said. “… It takes a lot out of him and he’s just a warrior, so proud of him and what he did.”
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Cal Baptist also had two others in double-figures in Bradey Henige (11 points, four rebounds) and Jonathan Griman (10 points, four rebounds).
In a game where the little details and the smallest of margins mattered, UVU again found itself on the losing end.
“Proud of our guys. They do a heck of a job over there at Cal Baptist and we thought we had all their plays, they got some new wrinkles they put in,” Phillips said.
“We did a great job on Dom most of the night and the last minute and a half he took over and hit some huge shots and hats off to them. I thought they did a great job and they deserved it.”
