Just when Glasgow Rocks appeared to have thrown away a place in the BBL Cup semi-finals last night, Kieron Achara threw up a Hail Mary and saw his team's prayers answered.
Cruising in the third quarter when they led Leicester Riders by as much as 20 points in Loughborough, the short-handed Scots contrived to squander their advantage with a seemingly limitless supply of errors.
However, with fractions of a second remaining, the Great Britain captain came up trumps with a three-point shot aimed in desperate hope rather than expectation to snatch a dramatic 85-84 victory that sets up a last-four showdown with Bristol Flyers next month.
"I don't know how it went in but we'll take it," said Achara, who collected 28 points and 10 rebounds. "Basketball's always a game of runs but we know we should have held the lead when we were so far in front. But I'm happy we were able to dig the win out. We found a way to do that but now we have build off this in the league."
With player-coach Sterling Davis confined to the sidelines, his side made light work of their adversity, racing 11-0 in front and riding their streaky shooting to coast 14 clear in the second period before Leicester closed to trail 40-33 at half-time.
Thirteen unanswered points after the interval sent the Rocks 53-33 into a seemingly impregnable lead but an eventual tally of 25 turnovers underlined the scale of the visitors' attempt at self-destruction. An 11-2 burst gave the hosts their first lead with 61 seconds left and, although JaJuan Smith appeared to have frittered away Glasgow's final chance, Achara stepped up to deliver at the death. "We set ourselves the goal of challenging for every piece of silverware and we're still in the running," the Stirling-born forward said. "Bristol's going to be a tough test but we'll take a lot from how we stood up to Leicester."
Newcastle meet Sheffield in the other semi-final.
In the British Basketball League, London Lions, who are expected to reshape their line-up this week, were beaten 80-73 by Durham Wildcats.
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