Associated Press
BLACKSBURG, Va. — In a game that was slipping away, Virginia Tech was rescued by an unusual call in the final minute, a very fortunate bounce and a timekeeper’s error.
And it all came in the final 21 seconds, allowing the Hokies to emerge with a 63-62 victory on Saturday against a Boston College team that surely felt it had been robbed.
“You got lucky, let’s face it,” Hokies coach Seth Greenberg said. “You win a game like that, one play is the difference between being miserable and being able to breathe.
“I can breathe tonight.”
Trailing by one with 22.8 seconds left, the Hokies trapped Biko Paris along the baseline after he caught an inbounds pass, and the officials ignored Paris’ calls for a timeout, perhaps because Jeff Allen was grabbing at the ball. Instead, Mike Wood called it a jump ball, and with the possession arrow favoring the Hokies, they got it and a chance to win it.
Eagles coach Al Skinner said the jump ball call surprised him.
“Did it ever. Usually, you’re going to get a timeout before you get the jump ball,” he said, “because you can’t signal timeout, so you’ve got to yell timeout, and an official’s got to put himself in the position to hear it. You just have to.”
Once they inbounded the ball, the Hokies went to Victor Davila underneath, and when he turned to make a move, the ball squirted free — right into Hudson’s hands, and he laid it in.
“You’ve got to be in the right spot at the right time,” Hudson said.
“We got lucky on that,” teammate Malcolm Delaney said.
The game clock showed 9.2 seconds left, but the officials determined it had stopped earlier in the possession, and they reset it to 5 seconds before the Eagles’ got it back.
They never got a shot off.Reggie Jackson took the pass and raced toward the other end before losing the handle, the Eagles 20th turnover of the game, as the Hokies held on.
