In one moment, St. Joe's season slipped away

BUFFALO - He dribbled at the top of the key for what felt like forever, and Langston Galloway's eyes scanned the floor for a sliver of space somewhere, anywhere.

The game clock was bleeding away, the score was tied, and Connecticut's defense was giving Galloway nothing, and when he started to go he lost the basketball and stumbled, somehow got the ball back and stumbled again and regained it again, and by now the shot clock showed 1.0, and Galloway was out of control.

He threw a desperate, line-drive-like shot toward the basket, and his best chance to extend his college career and St. Joseph's season thumped off the side of the backboard.

There are moments like this in the NCAA tournament every year, when a game is won or lost and the reality and ramifications of a single play, a single shot, take on so much meaning. You get Galloway - who had 25 points Thursday night, who finished his career at St. Joseph's with 1,991 points, second in school history - with an opportunity to lift 10th-seeded St. Joe's over seventh-seeded UConn in the East Regional, and the dream sequence doesn't come off, and the tired Hawks finally succumb in overtime, 89-81.

You get seniors such as Galloway and four of his teammates, and they don't see the end coming. They don't allow themselves to. They never do. They are young and they think the way that young people always think - that nothing can touch them, that good things never stop happening once they start.

Those good things had been happening for Galloway and St. Joseph's. The Hawks had won the Atlantic 10 tournament, and Galloway had been brilliant throughout it: 31 points in a victory over Dayton, shooting 54 percent from three-point range and 88 percent from the foul line, the go-to scorer a team always needs this time of year.

He was all of that and more in the first half Thursday, hitting five of his six shots, finding DeAndre Bembry with a no-look pass for a layup, making a baseline cut, taking a pass from Halil Kanacevic and, even at 6-foot-2, rising to the rafters to throw down a dunk over Amida Brimah, UConn's 7-foot freshman center.

The Hawks hadn't won an NCAA tournament game since 2004, since that memorable and magical run to the Elite Eight. For a long while Thursday, as they built a 10-point first-half lead and had the ball in Galloway's hands at the end of regulation, it looked as if Galloway would win them one through the force of his will.

"The reason I came here and a lot of these guys came here was to bring St. Joe's back and to get them back to this point," Galloway said. "It had been a long time since we'd been to this point in the tournament, and I wouldn't want to do it with any other group of guys. Everybody gave it their all tonight."

At 70-70, with 30.8 seconds left, St. Joseph's coach Phil Martelli called a fake ball screen - have Kanacevic flash to the key but let Galloway keep the ball. When Galloway put the ball through his legs to initiate a move to the basket, Martelli considered calling one more timeout to reset everything. He didn't, and soon Galloway had nowhere to go.

"Just wanted to keep the ball in my hands," he said. "I wanted to go out with the ball in my hands. It's a tough play. I'm upset with myself for not getting off a better-quality shot. If I'd gotten a better-quality shot, I probably would have made it."

He drilled one more three-pointer in overtime to tie the game again at 73. It was the Hawks' final gasp. Kanacevic fouled out. UConn took the lead and widened it. And with 8.9 seconds remaining in Galloway's career, Martelli motioned him to the sideline, gave him a hug, and allowed an ovation from the appreciative crowd inside the First Niagara Center to wash over Galloway.

"He's a wonderful, wonderful young guy," Martelli said. "He worked to be this good, and when you start talking about the all-timers, you start by talking about the person he is. He's on that list as an all-time person. . . . I don't know if we've ever had a player more proud to wear the St Joe's uniform."

One night, one moment, and he will never wear it again. It's the cruelest part of this tournament for these players, these kids. Langston Galloway was where he wanted to be, just one good jump shot away from glory, from making the best days of his young life last a little longer, and he kept dribbling and dribbling, waiting for an opening and an opportunity. It felt like forever. He only wished it were.

@MikeSielski