DANVILLE, Va. — The Cougars' prayers were answered as redshirt sophomore
Timayahs Bracey drained a desperation go-ahead 3-pointer with 8.8 seconds to play to help Averett University men's basketball knock off No. 2 Randolph-Macon College 62-60 on Wednesday night in the Grant Center.
Down by two points with under a minute to play, Averett (9-3, 2-1 ODAC) was looking to get a tying basket on its offensive possession. However, Randolph-Macon (11-1, 3-1 ODAC) defended and denied the Cougars a clean look. Bracey got the ball near the top of the arc with about eight seconds left on the shot clock, dribbled to his left around a screen but was caught several feet behind the 3-point line as he picked up his dribble as the clock ticked down. Sensing the shot clock was about to expire, he fired an off-balanced 3-pointer while being blanketed by a defender.
Nothing but net.
"They were reading all of our action and defending it well," Bracey said of Randolph-Macon's defense. "The shot clock was going down, so I came off the screen, they switched on the screen and played great defense. I saw the shot clock was going down, so I had to get a shot up and shot a fadeaway from like 30 feet. It was all net, and I just have to thank God.
"I felt amazing about it as I was watching it go in," he added. "I thought, 'Yeah, that's cash.' And it went in. … Then I was focused on getting that next stop to secure the win."
Although Bracey's clutch shot gave Averett a 61-60 advantage as the Cougars' bench and crowd erupted, the game was far from over. Randolph-Macon had a chance to answer. The Yellow Jackets' 3-pointer from the top of the arc hit the back iron and Averett freshman
Tyler Stephens secured the rebound with 0.4 seconds remaining as he was fouled.
Still, the game wasn't over. Averett hit the first of two free throws, but the second attempt didn't hit rim, giving Randolph-Macon one last glimmer of hope. A nearly full-court pass made it to the opposite free throw line, where Ty Showalter caught it, spun and banked in a shot. However, the shot was waived off and confirmed minutes later by replay that the ball was still in Showalter's hands when time expired — giving an anticlimactic end to one of the biggest wins in recent history by the Averett men's basketball program.
"We've always talked about how good we can be and what it takes to get there," said Bracey, who had a team-high 17 points. "This game shows us what potential we have to become that team that we've always wanted to be. We've got to build off this game and keep climbing and put in the work."
For Averett, it's the third top-25 win since November 2024. The Cougars took down then-No. 20 Maryville College and then-No. 10 Christopher Newport University on their way to a 5-0 start to the 2024-25 season.
"I think for us, being a young team, hopefully it builds confidence that if your disciplined, do you job and play the right way, that we can compete with great teams — including some of the best teams in the nation," Averett head coach
David Doino said. "I'm really proud of the way we fought. I thought the last five minutes of the game was a dog fight. I thought they made it really physical and really challenged us to run offense. They made some shots to really put us on the ropes to see if we could respond, and I'm really proud because I thought our guys consistently in the last five minutes responded the right way and executed in the last two minutes really well. It's a heck of a win and they are a heck of a program, but it shows that if you show up with the right mind frame and focus, that you have an opportunity to play with some of the best teams in the nation. And that's how our league is."
The game didn't start out smoothly for Averett. Randolph-Macon jumped on Averett early, taking a 12-4 lead in the first five minutes. Averett, however, settled in as Bracey and sophomore
Mason Mitchell helped the Cougars claw back within 14-12 in a matter of a few minutes. Averett got as close as one point late before the nationally ranked Yellow Jackets ended the half on an 8-3 run to go into the locker rooms up 33-27.
"It was extremely important because a team like that, anytime you get down double digits, you feel like you're in a bigger hole because of how disciplined they are and how they don't hurt themselves," Doino said of Randolph-Macon's early lead. "For us, every time they got their lead up to eight or nine, to be able to get it back down to around five and be within striking distance was really important for our confidence going into half."
Randolph-Macon kept Averett at a distance early in the second period, but the Cougars hung around. A layup by sophomore
Jackson Sellars and a pair of free throws by Mitchell gave Averett the window it needed to pull within 43-41 with 11:36 to play. Junior
Josh Seiler then drilled a 3-pointer to put Averett in front 44-43 — the Cougars' first lead of the game. Averett's defense sparked the offense as the Cougars got several key blocks. Sophomore
Zach Skogen hit a corner 3-pointer and Bracey made a floater in the late to extend Averett's lead to 49-43 with 9:17 remaining.
Doino was happy with his team's defensive efforts, especially throughout the second half.
"In this league, we're going to have stretches against really good teams where it's hard to score. You have to be defensive-minded and continue to challenge guys. Our guys are starting to see that if you play like that consistently, you have opportunities."
The Yellow Jackets didn't go away, using an 8-0 run to surge back in front 51-49. The two teams traded leads over the final minutes, but Randolph-Macon looked poised to escape after going ahead 60-56 with 1:30 to play. Sellars got Averett back within two with a layup with 1:09 left, and the Cougars got a defensive stop at the other end to give them the ball with under 30 seconds to play. A block on an Averett shot attempt gave the Cougars the ball on its own baseline with 25.4 seconds on the game clock, which set up the heroic shot by Bracey, which proved to be the difference. However, it wasn't exactly what the Cougars had drawn up.
"We were hoping to get more action to attack downhill in that situation in a two-point game and not really get stuck off a ball screen," Doino said. "(Timayahs) ended up picking up his dribble … and just made a heck of a play. Sometimes in these situations you need a guy to just step up and make something happen out of nothing and he was able to in that situation. Then our guys were able to string two stops together to finish the game off."
Bracey was one of three Cougars who finished with double-digit points as Mitchell added 16 points and matched his career-high of 11 rebounds, while Sellars finished with 10 points and three blocks. Stephens had seven points and seven rebounds and junior
Terrell Fitzgerald also finished with three blocks.
Doino pointed out to Averett's 40-26 advantage on the glass as another key factor to the victory, along with a season-high nine blocks as a team.
"Hopefully our confidence continues to grow off that," Doino said. "In this league, when you play some of the best teams in the country that don't hurt themselves, you better contest, defend and rotate as a team if you want to have an opportunity to win. And we did to challenge shots and it helped us to win the backboards by 14."
Averett hosts conference foe Virginia Wesleyan University on Saturday at 2 p.m.
