BOONE, N.C. – After a Noah Collier three-point play with 19 seconds left in regulation tied the game at 76 apiece, the App State Mountaineers (3-2) drew up a play designed for
Myles Tate, who has been a part of so many clutch moments in his App State career, to win the game. When William & Mary (3-5) blitzed Tate at the top of the key, the point guard swung the ball to an open
Dior Conners at the left wing with two seconds to play. Conners saw the ball leave his fingertips with a second to play and drained the shot with 0.2 seconds on the clock, sealing the game in dramatic fashion.
The 79-76 Mountaineer win was head coach
Dustin Kerns' 100th as the App State head coach. Conners' dramatic three made Kerns the third-fastest Mountaineer head coach to reach 100 wins (167 games) and made him the seventh coach in program history to get to 100 wins. Kerns passed App State coaching legends Bobby Cremins and Bob Light, who both needed 170 games to reach 100 wins.
App State was on fire all afternoon long from 3-point land, draining a season-best 15 threes on 29 attempts. The Mountaineers' 51.7 percent clip from the long line marked the best percentage since Jan. 2, 2021, a game in which App State won by 31 points. The Mountaineers got out to a 12-point halftime lead due in large part to 10 made first-half 3-pointers. The last time App State made 15 threes in a game came back on Nov. 7, 2022, against Warren Wilson. It's just the fourth time in the Kerns era that the Mountaineers have made at least 15 threes in a game.
Along with the buzzer-beating three, Conners stepped up huge in his second start as a Mountaineer, accumulating 15 points on 5-9 shooting.
Jamil Muttilib also played big minutes, tallying 12 points on four made threes, all coming in the opening frame of play. Conners and Muttilib combined to take zero shots in the game on Tuesday against Queens, but the two didn't let that shake them as they were both there when the Mountaineers needed a jolt.
Additionally, Tate played his best all-around game in his App State career, tallying his first double-double in the Black and Gold with a team-high 20 points and a career-best 10 assists. Tate scored eight of App State's 10 points before Conners' three to keep the Mountaineer advantage intact, proving once again that he is up for the moment.
How it Happened
Taking the floor first in doubleheader action, it was the Tribe that opened the scoring in a tightly contested basketball game at the Holmes Center, sinking two free throws.
CJ Huntley poured in a layup to mark App State's first points, but William & Mary used a 6-0 run to take an 8-2 lead, its largest of the game, by the 17:01 mark.
The Tribe continued to lead by the first media timeout, but the first of four Muttilib threes in the first half rang the net to cut App State's deficit to two with 15 minutes to play in the opening stanza. A second Muttilib three a minute later gave App State its first lead of the game at 11-10 and the Mountaineers never trailed again.
Jason Clarke Jr. and
Jalil Beaubrun got their days going by tallying the Mountaineers' next seven points to take things to the under-12 media timeout. Out of the break, the Tribe tied the game at 20 with just under nine minutes to play, but
Jackson Threadgill's first three of the contest rattled home to push the Mountaineers ahead again.
After a pair of Tate freebies before the under-eight timeout, Conners sent the Mountaineers ahead by double digits with two straight threes for his first baskets of the night. The lead grew to 14 with five minutes to play as Muttilib rained home his third first-half three and then Huntley got in on the action with his first three to extend the Mountaineer advantage to 15 by the final media break of the first half. Huntley's three was the ninth of the first half.
Malachi Ndur put an end to App State's run with a three, but a fourth Muttilib three rang home from the left wing, marking App State's 10th of the half on 18 attempts, which gave the Mountaineers a 12-point advantage as the first-half horn sounded.
App State shot an incredible 56 percent from behind the arc in the first half, fueled by Muttilib's 4-7 mark. Defensively, the Mountaineers held a William & Mary team that came into the contest making 11 threes a game to just four in the first 20 minutes. Additionally, App State kept the Tribe to just 37 percent from the field.
Minutes into the second half, the Mountaineer advantage ballooned to a game-high 19 as Conners sunk two more threes and Beaubrun rattled home a long ball from the top of the key. By the 17:36 mark of the second half, App State had made 13 3-pointers.
Despite trailing by 19, the Tribe used their stellar 3-point shooting to claw back into the game. Noah Collier, the Tribe's leading scorer entering play, helped quell the Mountaineers' hot shooting by scoring four straight points to cut the lead back to 15 by the under-16 timeout. Then, a Kyle Frazier three with 15 minutes to play cut the Mountaineer advantage back to 12 as his three capped off a 7-0 run.
The Mountaineers quieted the William & Mary run by going on their own 5-0 run to jump back in front by 17. The prowess of Tate allowed him to score all five points during that run, which helped calm the fray by the under-12 timeout.
Fighting back, William & Mary sunk four of its next seven shots to shrink the deficit to just nine by the under-eight break. To that point, the Tribe had outscored App State by three points in the second half. A pair of
Michael Marcus Jr. free throws pushed the Mountaineer lead back over double digits, but threes by Kyle Pulliam and Gabe Dorsey cut the deficit to just five by the 5:34 mark. The Tribe used an extended 17-6 run to climb back into the game.
Tate's step-back three from the right wing calmed things down for App State by the under-four timeout, but the Tribe answered back to pull within four with less than four minutes to play. Hot shooting by both Pulliam and Dorsey helped close the gap. By the 2:04 mark, the Mountaineer lead sat at two as Pulliam capped off his 12-point night.
William & Mary cut its deficit to one point with 58 seconds to play. Tate sunk another shot to shoot App State ahead by three with 34 seconds to play, giving him 20 for the game. After a Tribe turnover followed by an App State turnover, the Tribe had the ball down three and looked to tie it. They would do just that as Collier hit a layup while being fouled, bringing the score to 76 apiece with 19 seconds to play.
Kerns elected not to use a timeout with the game tied and allowed Tate a chance to step up to the moment yet again in his Mountaineer career. Wanting to force overtime, William & Mary blitzed Tate at the top of the key to force the ball out of his hands. This led to a perfect pass to Conners at the left wing and without hesitation, the junior pulled the three and sunk it. A last-ditch halfcourt heave from the Tribe fell short and the Mountaineers had won 79-76.
Top Performers
Four different Mountaineers eclipsed double figures in Kerns' 100th win at App State, but none scored more than
Myles Tate. Tate's 20-point, 10-assist night marked his first double-double as a Mountaineer. His 10 assists were also a career-high. After not attempting a shot in his first start as a Mountaineer,
Dior Conners stepped up aggressively in his second start, scoring 15 points on five threes.
CJ Huntley also played well in the game as he followed up his career night with his fourth consecutive double-digit point game.
Up Next
The Mountaineers will trek to Wilmington, N.C., for the Live Oak Bank Holiday Classic, hosted by the UNCW Seahawks starting Wednesday. App State will play three games in four days at the tournament. The Mountaineers will open play against the 2023-24 Conference USA regular-season champion Sam Houston Bearkats on Wednesday at Trask Coliseum. Wednesday's action is set to kick off at 4 p.m. and can be streamed on Flo Sports College.
The 2024-25 men's basketball season is presented by Foscoe Companies.
