By MONTE DUTTON

JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. – On Saturday morning, too early, I turned on the TV in my room and East Tennessee PBS was raising money by showing a cavalcade of disco hits. I was so happy I enjoyed it.

For the first time in a decade Presbyterian College won a men’s basketball game on a neutral floor at the Big South Tournament. They won one at Templeton Center against UNC Asheville  in 2019 when the higher seeds opened at home. Before that, the Blue Hose beat Radford in Buies Creek, N.C., in 2016.

In PC’s Big South history, they had lost 14/16.

No more.

It’s a mystical feeling when a bright orange ball goes arching through the lights and the horn sounds. Would it? Could it? Nah. Surely not.

Sometimes it’s not just a horn. It’s a whistle. Winthrop beat Charleston Southern, 86-81, on Friday. Few will ever know how much drama hung in that last-second air.

With 1.4 seconds remaining, it was still in doubt. The Buccaneers (15-17) were game, but the Eagles (22-10) were courageous.

Logan Duncomb, Winthrop’s 6-11 senior from Crystal Lake, Ill., by way of Xavier (Ohio), played with a broken foot. He took a shot that enabled him to play. He scored 20 points, grabbed 11 rebounds and. passed out three assists. Not bad, huh? He played 15 minutes, 59 seconds.

In other words, Duncomb gave his teammates 15:59 of Wilt Chamberlain. He didn’t enter the game in the second half until 11:48 remained in the game. In the next two minutes, he made every positive move a basketball player can make – field goal, free throw, assist, rebound – except a steal.

“I definitely wanted to be out there,” Duncomb said. “My career won’t be complete if I don’t make it to March Madness. I really want to be there.”

He was there Friday afternoon.

“We want our kids to find the joy of playing the game,” Winthrop head coach Mark Prosser said.

Even if it hurts a little.

Longwood’s Elijah Tucker hurt a lot. He came down under the basket calamitously early in the latter half against UNC Asheville. The crowd went deadly silent and it could hear the moaning as he grimaced and wept. He left for the locker room and returned still dressed, shuffling and stretching behind the Lancers’ bench. Tucker quite obviously wanted to play some more, but it was obviously impossible.

UNCA (15-16) won in overtime, 85-82.

Presbyterian, crowding 9:30 by the time they hit the floor, missed 11 of its first 12 shots and trailed 11-2 with 12:23 remaining in the opening half. Halfway to break time, it was 16-6.

By halftime, it was, uh, manageable. Radford’s Del Jones popped a three at the buzzer put the Highlanders up, 36-28, not bad considering that the Blue Hose shot .344 from the floor and Jonah Pierce was scoreless.

Pierce made a steal on Radford’s first latter-half possession. Off on the run went the Hose. Parrish, all alone in the forecourt, missed a three. Great. Then, however, PC got within seven points, 39-32. The Highlanders called timeout.

Four minutes in, PC pulled within five for the first time since the game’s opening minutes. A Pierce tap made it two. A triple made it two again. Then the Hose got too frantic, and by 12:12, it was 10 (54-44) again.

The Blue Hose never led. They never strayed far. One game, the last one, was every season.

Then, with just under four minutes to play, it was tied. Before the clock reached 3:30, it was a four-point deficit (67-63). Then it was tied, and then it wasn’t. Two missed three throws, and Radford’s Parker wrangled the offensive rebound. 69-67. A Wilson turnover at 2:03. Two more missed free throws, and another offensive rebound. PC was down five again at 1:54.

At the buzzer, Pickett banked one at the buzzer from just inside half-court.

Again, the game was tied. Overtime again. The 11 o’clock news was over, but a jinx was broken and PC, at long last, with the ghost of Rod Serling lurking in the wings, was triumphant in Johnson City, 91-85.

I don’t know whose curse was broken. Not the Bambino’s. Maybe it was the ghost of Wiley Adams.

Jaylen Peterson said, “We won because we work on defense more than anyone in the country. Our day is coming.”

Take a look at the stats here.

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Most of my books are available at Amazon. Two of my novels, Cowboys Come Home and Lightning in a Bottle, are available in audio versions.