It was supposed to be Anthony Virdure's night, and he was supposed to be the hero.
The Lincoln senior surpassed 1,000 career points with the Blue Tigers in a rallying effort Wednesday night at Jason Gym, and the ball ended up in his hands for the last shot. A 3-pointer would have erased a 14-point deficit and would have snapped Lincoln's 17-game losing streak against the Central Missouri Mules.
It was set up to be a storybook ending, but Virdure's 30-foot shot at the buzzer was a mere four inches too long, clanking off the back of the rim. Central Missouri escaped with a 66-64 win, despite leading the last 24 minutes of the game.
Like every shot he takes, Virdure thought his buzzer-beater was going to be good.
"I actually thought it was (going in), but hey, it doesn't always work out in your favor," Virdure said.
The game played out much like Lincoln's loss earlier this season against Truman State, when the Blue Tigers fell behind by double digits only to come up short at the end.
"We dug ourselves too much of a hole," Lincoln coach John Moseley said. "It wasn't the things that we did late as much as what we did in the middle when they got up 14.
"Kudos to Central Missouri. We didn't really get comfortable offensively for a long time tonight."
Lincoln spent much of the game battling for good shot attempts, but the Central Missouri defense forced several off-balanced jumpers, contested layups and deep 3-point tries from start to finish.
The Blue Tigers shot 35.4 percent from the field, well below their season average of 45.1 percent entering the game.
"We forced way too much offensively," Moseley said. "Too many times tonight we put Anthony in situations where he had to be a hero to create a shot. For a long portion of the game, they just weren't falling."
Virdure knocked down another deep 3 from the right wing with 4:01 to play, cutting the Central Missouri lead to 58-53. But the Blue Tigers struggled to get it to a one-possession game.
Two minutes later, Virdure hit another key 3-pointer, but it only cut an 8-point lead to 62-57. The Mules answered with a 3 by Kyle Wolf on the other end with 1:17 to play, stretching the lead back to eight points.
The milestone moment for Virdure came on the next possession. He scored his 1,000th career point at Lincoln with a 3 from the right wing, trimming the lead to 65-60 with 1:05 to play.
It took Virdure just 48 games to score 1,000 points at Lincoln, becoming the 21st player in program history to do so. He is the only junior-college transfer at Lincoln to reach the milestone.
"I'm extremely proud of Anthony. He's been everything that we thought he would be as a player," Moseley said.
After a Central Missouri turnover, Jaylon Smith made a pair of free throws to pull Lincoln with three points of the lead with :40.0 to play. Then the Mules committed another turnover, as Spencer Reaves dribbled the ball off his foot and out of bounds with :13.5 left.
Lincoln responded with a turnover, but Reaves missed the front end of 1-and-1 with :07.3 remaining. Rather than let Lincoln hold the ball for the last shot, Central Missouri opted to foul with :03.4 left. Virdure made both free throws, cutting the Mules' lead to 65-64.
Moseley said he wanted Virdure to make the second attempt, rather than to play for a miss and hopefully score on a putback to tie the game.
"We spend time in practice quite often working on special situations," Moseley said. "With :03.4 on the clock, I asked him to do his best to make it. I thought we had enough time to foul."
The Blue Tigers did foul, with :02.7 left, and Reaves made just 1-of-2 free throws to leave the Mules with a 2-point lead. It left enough time for Lincoln to take the last shot, which came up just short.
Virdure led Lincoln with 25 points, scoring 18 in the second half. Maurice Mason added 12 for the Blue Tigers and Richie Lewis scored 10 points before fouling out with 3:48 to play.
Jakob Lowrance led Central Missouri (11-5, 5-3 MIAA) with 14 points, hitting two big 3-point shots. Reaves finished with 12 points and Wolf added 11 points.
With 10 regular-season games to play and potentially more in the postseason, Virdure can still chase another career milestone. While at Mineral Area, he scored 788 points his freshman and sophomore seasons. Add his total from Lincoln and he needs 209 points to achieve 2,000 points in his college career.
"Not too many people know this, but I scored 2,000 points in high school," Virdure said. "Not too many people get to do it."
Lincoln (12-6, 5-4 MIAA) will host Southwest Baptist (9-7, 2-4 MIAA) at 3:30 p.m Saturday.