RUSSELLVILLE - In the immediate aftermath of Hunter Pankey’s game-tying three (an off-balance, desperation shot from the top of the key that banked off the glass and in, pulling East Limestone even with Russellville at 81-81 with 4.6 seconds left in Friday’s Class 5A, Area 16 championship game), several things were happening.
The small but boisterous East Limestone crowd that made the 75-minute haul to Russellville was, naturally, in a state of delirium, having watched their team hit four threes—the last two of which were bank jobs by senior guard Jamil Pride and Pankey—in a frantic final minute to rally from seven points down and tie the game. Russellville’s players, who had committed virtually none of the mistakes ordinarily associated with late-game meltdowns [the Golden Tigers went 5-for-6 from the foul line in the final minute, defended the three-point line reasonably well and even killed one East Limestone possession by forcing a turnover], were, naturally, in a state of shock.
Patrick Odom, meanwhile, was in a state of nostalgia.
As Odom called timeout and then waved his team over to the sideline, he’d already made up his mind. The Golden Tigers were going to run The Play.
Here, briefly, is how The Play works. Following a made basket (when the inbounder is allowed to run the baseline), one man takes the ball out of bounds on, let’s say, the left side of the court. Upon being handed the ball by the official, the inbounder sprints horizontally along the baseline to the right side of the court, while a teammate sprints on a perpendicular line toward the baseline and establishes himself out of bounds, in the spot the initial inbounder just vacated.
The initial inbounder fires a horizontal pass to the second inbounder, who then triggers the inbounds play against a defense that is, at the very least, slightly off-kilter or, ideally, completely confused.
Need a visual? Go to youtube.com and search “Shoals Christian trick play.” Two entries down you’ll find a two-minute video (complete with captioning and subtitles, for dramatic effect) showing The Play as run by Shoals Christian’s boys in the final seconds of the Class 1A, Area 16 championship game against R.A. Hubbard in 2013. Watch closely, and you’ll see a tall man in a maroon sweater vest pacing the Shoals Christian sideline—none other than Patrick Odom.
There’s really no telling how the defense is going to react to The Play. In that game in Courtland four years ago, R.A. Hubbard’s players simply froze and became spectators with uniforms, watching as the initial inbounder fired the horizontal pass to the second inbounder and then streaked down the floor, hauling in a 90-foot pass (with only a teammate anywhere in the vicinity) and dropping in a game-winning layup that broke a 49-49 tie and gave Odom and the Flame an area title.
Fast-forward to December 20, 2016. Russellville is locked up in a tight battle with Lawrence County, and Odom—at that point in the middle of his second season as the Golden Tigers’ head coach—calls for his team to run The Play. He designates senior guard Bailey Motes as the initial inbounder and instructs him on what to do. Motes is convinced he’s not hearing his coach correctly.
“I was completely lost,” Motes said. “I’d never heard of that play. I said, ‘Can I do that?’ I ask him three times. ‘Are you sure I can do that?’ He said to just do it, so I did.”
Nothing particularly memorable transpired on that rendition of The Play, and the Golden Tigers wound up winning the game 90-80 in overtime. Fast-forward again to Friday night. Pankey has just banked in East Limestone’s 11th three-pointer of the second half and 15th of the night, tying the game 81-all. As Motes makes his way to the Russellville bench, it dawns on him.
The Play.
“When I looked at Bailey in the huddle,” Odom said, “I think he knew what we were gonna do.”
“I did,” Motes said. “I had a feeling. It goes back to that first time we did it against Lawrence County at home, when Coach Odom went through the process of how you could do that and have it be a legal move.
“We though it was gonna work, because they were guarding us so tight on the inbounds.”
In particular, East Limestone senior Gary Gilbert had draped himself all over Russellville’s Devin Buckhalter down the stretch, and with good reason. The 5’11, 200-pound Gilbert is a strong, physical athlete and one of the Indians’ top two players, but he had both hands full all night trying to slow down Buckhalter. The scintillating sophomore had tormented East Limestone with blow-by drives, step-back jumpers and dagger threes, the last of which gave the Golden Tigers a 70-68 lead with 2:40 remaining.
After watching Buckhalter score 17 of his 24 points in the second half, Gilbert was attached to him so tightly that he probably would have followed him into the parking lot.
“They were really getting up on Devin, trying to deny him the basketball,” Odom said. “He was having such a big night and had been so hot during that stretch, they were really tight on him. A lot of times, in that situation, the defense is really aggressive, because they don’t want to lose the basketball game in the last five seconds. You try to use that aggressiveness against them.”
With that (and Buckhalter’s powerful right arm) in mind, Odom designated his sophomore wing as the second inbounder on Friday’s installment of The Play. With 4.6 seconds on the clock, Motes took the ball from the official on the left side of the floor and then sprinted along the baseline to his right before stopping to zip a horizontal pass back to Buckhalter, who had established position out of bounds in Motes’ former location.
Whereas R.A. Hubbard’s mistake four years ago was being too passive, Gilbert’s mistake on Friday night was being too aggressive. He followed Buckhalter across the end line and out of bounds before reaching out and knocking away the pass from Motes, who knew right away that the play had already done its job.
“I knew [the defender] can’t go out of bounds with you,” Motes said. “It’s the same thing as him being over the line when he’s guarding the inbounder. Then he touched the ball. I think he might have even caught it.”
The result of this particular installment of The Play wasn’t as YouTube-friendly as Shoals Christian’s last-second layup in 2013, but it was just as effective.
“That’s one of the things that can happen,” Odom said, “and it’s probably the best-case scenario, because you get two free throws and possession. As soon as he steps out of bounds, it’s supposed to be a technical foul. And if he touches the ball, it’s automatic.”
The three officials conferred briefly [odds are good that none of them had dealt with such a scenario all year, if ever] before assessing East Limestone a technical foul, which left Odom with a critical decision—choosing which player would shoot the two most important free throws of Russellville’s season.
Buckhalter entered the night shooting a team-best 74 percent from the line and had gone 5-for-6 in Friday’s first half, but he hadn’t attempted a free throw since the second quarter and had spent most of the second half working to shake free of Gilbert. Buckhalter typically shoots technical free throws for the Golden Tigers, but Odom was concerned that fatigue might be a factor.
Senior point guard Taylor Vincent, a 73-percent foul shooter who had made two big ones with 27.1 seconds remaining to push Russellville’s lead to four, was another attractive option. So, for that matter, was Motes, a sometimes-streaky shooter from the line (63 percent) who was streaking in the right direction (13-for-16) on Friday night.
Odom bypassed all three of those guys, however, and went with sophomore guard Lucas McNutt, who came into the game shooting 71 percent from the line. Most importantly, however, McNutt was already 5-for-6 from the line in Friday’s fourth quarter and had just made two free throws with 17.5 seconds left to stretch Russellville’s lead to 81-78.
“I had a lot of great choices there, but I felt like Lucas had the hot hand,” Odom said. “A lot of it had to do with him being in a rhythm. He’d just got through walking up to the line and making two big ones right before that. Plus, he’s our shooter. Making shots is his job. That’s what he does.”
McNutt, who earlier in the game had knocked down his team-leading 38th three-pointer of the season, now only needed to hit one unguarded 15-footer to put the Golden Tigers on top. He calmly made two, giving Russellville an 83-81 lead.
“Free throws win ball games,” said Motes, who finished with a game-high 27 points. “Honestly, Lucas probably shoots ‘em better than any of us. I had confidence in him. I knew he’d make at least one, and that’s all we needed.”
Following McNutt’s clutch makes from the line, Russellville inbounded the ball to the speedy Vincent, who dribbled out the final 4.6 seconds of a thrilling two-point win.
Finally, Odom could exhale.
“That was a game that just didn’t want to end,” he said. “Four-point-six seconds is an eternity in a basketball game, and anything can happen—obviously, as we saw tonight with the way they were making shots in that last minute.”
In truth, the Indians (15-13) had been red-hot since early in the third quarter, when sophomore guard Tyler Wagnon and Pankey connected on back-to-back threes to jump-start a comeback from an 11-point deficit. Another three by Pankey trimmed the lead to four, but Buckhalter responded with back-to-back threes of his own to make it 56-46. Pride nailed a trey to cut the lead to seven, but Motes beat the third-quarter buzzer with a driving layup to make it 58-49 heading to the fourth.
East Limestone kept coming, pulling even at 61-61 on a three by Pankey early in the fourth quarter. Buckhalter responded with an 18-footer to put Russellville (18-7) back in front, but Pride made two free throws to tie it again. Moments later, Pride buried a three to give the Indians a 68-65 lead.
Afterwards, Motes marveled at East Limestone’s prolific perimeter shooting.
“They had fifteen?” he asked, confirming the Indians’ final three-point count. “Oh my gosh. I had no idea they hit that many.”
For his part, Odom couldn’t believe it either. With the Golden Tigers up by seven at 36-29 after closing the first half on a 20-5 run, the thought that East Limestone might come out and drain 11 threes in the second half never crossed his mind.
“No, it didn’t,” he said. “We’ve played them twice, we’ve seen eight films of them and we’ve watched them play in person a couple times. No, I didn’t imagine they’d come out and shoot the ball like that. They had a couple of guys who had the game of their life tonight, but that’s area tournament basketball. Those things happen. It’s a credit to those guys, and you have to find a way to overcome it.”
The Golden Tigers seemed to have done just that after Buckhalter’s straight-on three and a turnaround jumper by Vincent sparked a 9-1 run. Motes made four straight free throws to cap the run and make it 76-69 with exactly 1:00 remaining, but the Indians weren’t done—not by a long shot (pun intended).
Pankey and Pride each hit two threes over the final 60 seconds, setting the stage for The Play and McNutt’s game-winning free throws. The technical foul obviously proved decisive, but it’s hard to blame Gilbert for his actions.
“I feel for that kid, because he played such a great game,” Odom said of Gilbert, who finished with 19 points. “I put my arm around him and number two [Pride] after the game and just hugged their necks, because those kids played so hard. Give East Limestone credit. A lot of teams, especially if you’d already beaten them twice, would have just thrown in the towel when we went on that big run and got the lead on them. They didn’t do that.”
Pride, who had scored 23 points in each of the first two meetings with Russellville, had just eight through the first three quarters on Friday before erupting for 15 in the fourth. He finished with 23 again, hitting five threes and going 6-for-8 from the line. Pankey, a senior, hit six threes and finished with 20 points. The Indians shot 14-for-22 from the foul line.
Motes scored 11 second-quarter points to get Russellville going and then added nine more in the fourth, topping the 20-point mark for the 12th time this season. Buckhalter scored 12 points in the third quarter and five more in the fourth, posting his fifth game of the year with 20-plus points. Two of them have come at the expense of the Indians, against whom Buckhalter is averaging 19.7 points in three meetings. Motes, meanwhile, has torched East Limestone for 82 points in three games, an average of 27.3 per contest.
McNutt finished 7-for-8 from the line on Friday and scored 10 points. Vincent and Austin Stidham added eight apiece, Judd Ward had four and Caden Parker scored two. Russellville made just four threes but shot 27-for-33 from the line.
The Golden Tigers will now host a sub-regional game for the second straight season. A year ago, a loss to St. John Paul denied them their first trip to Hanceville since 2011; on Tuesday of next week, they’ll host the loser of Saturday night’s Area 15 final between top-ranked Mae Jemison and No. 4 Lee-Huntsville. Either way, the home team will be a decided underdog on Tuesday night—which suits Odom just fine.
“This is 5A basketball,” he said. “To be the best, you’ve gotta beat the best. We’d rather see them a little later on, but that’s okay. Our guys are excited about the opportunity. A lot of teams would be dreading it, but not these guys. They’re looking forward to it.
“Last year, when we won the area tournament, with everything we’d been through to get there and all the adversity we dealt with, that was kind of the mountaintop. We won the area, and that was it. This team is different. This team isn’t done.”
