J.T Thompson goes up for a dunk. He had a career high 21 points in Wednesday night's game against the Dukes. Related gallery
The Virginia Tech men's basketball team worked overtime - two, in fact - to defeat the Duquesne Dukes, 116-108, at Cassell Coliseum on Wednesday night in the opening round of the National Invitational Tournament.
"All I can say is 'wow,'" said Tech head coach Seth Greenberg. "I've been doing this 32 years and I've never played a game like that."
The Hokies (18-14), who earned a No. 2 seed in the 32-team field, faced a tough challenge from the start in the seventh-seeded Dukes (21-12), who finished the season with an impressive run to the Atlantic 10 tournament's championship game.
While both the Hokies and the Dukes sport rosters long in youth, the contest ended up being a dual between the two teams' senior leaders.
Tech senior A.D. Vassallo scored 33 points, grabbed 12 rebounds and had five assists in one of his most impressive performances of the season.
Not to be outdone, Duquesne senior leader and guard Aaron Jackson scored a career-high 46 points.
Despite letting a 13-point lead slip away, Tech had one last shot at getting it right.
Down two with 13 seconds remaining and another Hokie game coming down to one shot, Vassallo pulled up hitting a jumper to tie, eventually sending it into overtime.
"I'm just trying to make sure I didn't let my team down," Vassallo said. "I knew if we made it to overtime we'd have a chance, we're a good team in overtime and I was just trying to give our team a chance."
Vassallo was there again for another jumper, this time in the waning moments of the first extra session, but it fell short. However, J.T. Thompson was there to pick up the scraps, putting Tech up two on a put-back with 10 seconds to go.
As the time ticked away, the Dukes put the ball in the hands of the one man they've been going to all year.
Jackson, an All-Atlantic 10 first-team guard, drove through the lane and knotted the game with a lay-up.
"(Jackson is) a fierce competitor," Greenberg said. "We are running a second defender at him and he is making big shot after big shot. His toughness and competitive spirit really impressed me."
Thompson and Vassallo led the way to begin the second overtime with a 9-2 run. The Hokies held on with little pressure from the Dukes for the remainder of the action.
"We had great resiliency," Greenberg said.
"We did not do a very good job of managing the clock. We got careless when we got up 14 and we missed some free throws. All those reasons we could've just cashed it in, but we didn't."
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