‘You live for moments like that’: Richardson hits game-winning shot as Hawks ground Flyers

Video courtesy of Steve Looten

QUINCY — For the first 39 minutes, 39 seconds of Monday night’s Great Lakes Valley Conference matchup, the Lewis men’s basketball team never wavered from playing tenacious man-to-man defense.

“I think it had been that way the entire year, too,” Quincy University coach Steve Hawkins said.

So after calling timeout with 21 seconds remaining in regulation and the teams tied at 69, the Hawks designed a play in the huddle to attack a man-to-man defense. The only issue was the Flyers showed a zone defense for the first time.

“Good move,” Hawkins said. “Really good move.”

The Hawks combatted it with some improvisation.

“Coach said scratch it right as we were coming on the floor,” QU junior guard Zion Richardson said. “So we went straight to our zone offense and got into our execution.”

Freshman point guard Isaiah Foster took the inbounds pass, allowed the Hawks to get in place and then moved the ball to the left wing and then to the right. The ball ended up back in his hands at the top of the key, and he swung it to Richardson 30 feet from the basket above the right elbow.

Richardson drove hard toward the baseline, getting inside the hip of Lewis defender Jemere Hill and banking in a shot high off the backboard with 2.1 seconds remaining, lifting Quincy to a 71-69 victory at Pepsi Arena and the first 2-0 start in league play since the 2016-17 season.

“You live for moments like that,” said Richardson, who finished with 14 points and seven assists. “That’s why you’re in the gym, for the moments where you just win.”

The Hawks (4-3) were confident any one of the five players on the floor for the final possession could make a play. So when Richardson attacked, they had faith he’d finish.

“It’s big time. It’s absolutely big time,” said QU senior forward Malik Hardmon, who led the Hawks with 20 points. “Zion said, ‘Let me go win this game.’ And that’s what he did.”

Lewis threw an inbounds pass from under the basket that was batted out of bounds in front of the Flyers’ bench with 1.2 seconds remaining, giving them one final chance. Junior guard Beau Frericks got off a 3-point attempt from about 35 feet at the buzzer, but it caromed off the side of the rim to leave the Flyers 0-2 in the GLVC.

“That’s a gut-check win for us,” Richardson said. “These are the wins that matter.”

It took the Hawks buckling down after some defensive struggles in the first half allowed the Flyers to take a 42-32 lead to halftime. The game was tied at 30 with 2:22 to play before Lewis hit four consecutive 3-pointers, including three from Frericks, who finished 6 of 10 from 3-point range and scored 20 points.

The Flyers went 11 of 17 from 3-point range in the first half, a stark contrast to their first five games when they averaged 15 attempts per game and were shooting 30.7 percent from beyond the arc.

“We made some adjustments the guys needed to make,” Hawkins said.

In the second half, the Flyers went 3 of 11 from 3-point range.

It’s part of what allowed the Hawks to chip away at the deficit. Down as many as 14 points, Quincy closed within five points with 13 minutes remaining, but still trailed by 60-51 with 8:30 remaining.

“No panic at all,” Hardmon said. “Coach came in at halftime and said, ‘There’s no doubt in my mind we’re going to win this ballgame.’ That set the tone right there. We knew we were going to win this game. We knew we were going to go the distance. There was no panic. We just stayed poised.”

Less than three minutes later, Hardmon scored on a layin to tie the game at 60.

“The atmosphere and crowd in here, man, it was loud in here,” said Quincy senior guard Jamaurie Coakley, who had 12 points. “The bench, too. I couldn’t hear myself talk.”

Coakley put the Hawks ahead 69-65 with a runner with 2:26 to go, but Hill scored a pair of baskets to tie the game, the second coming with 27.7 seconds remaining.

Six seconds later, the Hawks took a timeout and set up the winning play.

“The last thing we told the guys coming out of the huddle was you have to put the air in the referee’s whistle,” Hawkins said. “If we drive it, we have to at least shoot free throws.”

There was no foul, only a shot that made the opening weekend of GLVC perfect.

“Win,” Richardson said. “That’s all I was thinking. Just win the game.”