IRVINE — The inbounds play was drawn up for UC Irvine guard Justin Hohn to get a potential game-winning 3-point shot, but then Myles Che locked eyes with Devin Tillis.
Che decided to loft a pass from the baseline to the opposite side of the rim, where Tillis leaped in the air and shoved the ball toward the basket just before time expired.
The ball bounced on the rim and off the backboard before falling through the hoop, lifting the Anteaters to a 62-60 victory over UC Santa Barbara in a Big West Conference thriller on Thursday night at the Bren Events Center.
The win kept UCI (21-4 overall, 11-2 Big West) tied atop the conference standings with UC San Diego (21-4, 11-2).
“Myles looked at me and we kind of just knew,” Tillis said of the game-winning play. “And then it was just fireworks from there.”
Tillis scored the final six points for UCI and 22 in all.
Che was the only other player to score in double figures for the Anteaters, finishing with 13 points.
“We won tonight, that’s important,” UCI coach Russell Turner said. “Now, we’ve got a difficult assignment to catch a flight (Friday) morning, fly to Hawaii and play them over there on Saturday night.”
UCSB (16-9, 8-6) came into the game as the eighth-best 3-point shooting team in the country at 39.4%, and with the leading 3-point shooter in the nation in Cole Anderson (53.9%).
The Gauchos shot 8 for 24 (33.3%) from behind the arc, while Anderson missed all four of his tries from long range and scored two points.
Stephan Swenson led the Gauchos with 18 points and Kenny Pohto contributed 15 points and 10 rebounds.
“They outplayed us in the last 10 minutes of the game,” Turner said of UCSB. “They outrebounded us, they outworked us, they looked like they were hungrier to beat us than we were to beat them.”
The Anteaters took their biggest lead of the game at 51-40 on two free throws by Che after a technical foul on UCSB coach Joe Pasternack with 10:08 left.
That’s when the Gauchos started to get hot from the perimeter, making three 3-pointers in a row during a 9-0 run that cut the lead to two points with 8:05 left.
UCI, which came in fifth in the nation in free-throw shooting (80.8%), missed four of five free throws in a 5-minute stretch of the second half that prevented the Anteaters from expanding their lead.
The Gauchos hurt their chances at the line as well, missing the front end of two one-and-one situations in the final minutes.
Swenson hit a step-back 3-pointer to give UCSB a 58-56 lead with 2:26 left, but Tillis scored on back-to-back post moves to move the Anteaters back ahead 60-58 with 1:08 remaining.
Swenson scored on a drive with 29 seconds left to tie it at 60-all after the Gauchos had grabbed an offensive rebound.
The ball then went out of bounds with 6.5 seconds left and, after a long review, the ball was awarded to UCI. The ball was then knocked out of bounds again with 0.6 seconds left, setting up the winning inbounds play.
“A lot of people will credit the shot that won that game, but it was the pass that won the game,” Turner said.
Tillis was a big reason the Anteaters took a 32-31 lead into halftime after the senior forward shot 6 for 8 from the field (2 for 3 from 3-point range) and made the only 3-pointers UCI converted in the first half.
UCSB took its biggest lead of the first half at 16-10, but the Anteaters came back with a 7-0 run capped by Tillis’ first 3-pointer.
UCI strung together another 7-0 run to take its biggest lead of the first half at 24-21, but the Gauchos answered with seven straight points of their own to move back ahead 28-24.
Kyle Evans scored inside with 1:25 left in the half to move the Anteaters back ahead 32-30.
Hohn, who came in averaging 12 points, went scoreless in the first half after missing all four of his field goal attempts. He finished with eight points.
“Having that edge every night is something we have to keep,” Tillis said. “Being able to share the ball and play together, we’ll come out on top.”
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