Wittenberg (7-4) trailed by 15 points with 11 minutes to play. It regained the lead on a 3-pointer by Cameron Walton with 2:13 to go and won the game on two free throws by Chris Sullivan with 4 seconds left. Bradford’s Joseph Coppolla missed a half-court shot at the buzzer.
Sullivan made the clutch free throws at the end of his worst 3-point shooting night of the season. He made 4-of-16 from long range, but hit 6-of-6 free throws and finished with 22 points.
“It took me a while to get started. I don’t even know if I did get started,” Sullivan said. “I took so many 3s. You get a chance to go to the line at that point in the game, you’ve got to step up and hit those. It’s just a matter of routine and not thinking the game’s on the line. You’ve got to think it’s just another free throw.”
While the Tigers struggled from 3-point range and from the foul line (13-of-24), Clayton Black hit 9-of-10 shots. He led the team with 23 points.
Coach Bill Brown said the team’s defense more than its offensive struggles was the reason it trailed the majority of the game. He also praised Bradford (5-6), a team whose longtime head coach was fired in December. That coach, Andy Moore, had three sons on the team, all key players, and they are no longer with the team as well. Bradford had not played a game since Dec. 11.
“My hat is off to Pitt-Bradford,” Brown said. “I told (Bradford) in the hallway after the game, ‘I hope you don’t think I’m being overly noble, but I told our team at halftime, I was proud of you guys. I can’t imagine what these last three weeks have been like.’
“They played very well. They made shots. We certainly helped them out with some really scratch-your-head decisions on the defensive end. But three days from now, no one will care whether we won by two and had it be a titanic struggle or whether we won going away. A ‘W’ is a ‘W,’ and a ‘L’ is a ‘L,’ and we got the ‘W.’ ”
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