When Chris Beard was growing up in Irving, Texas, at the age when kids chuck a basketball more than shoot it, games ran out at the Northwest Park Recreation Center. They didn’t worry about a shot clock. Beard raced against closing time.
“I played basketball all the time. I loved it. It was my life,” said Beard, now the first-year coach at Arkansas-Little Rock, the darling of Denver’s portion of the Midwest Regional. “As a kid, I always remember wanting to play one more game. The center would close at 10. But sometimes the lady at the front desk, she would let us stay. She’d say, ‘Hey, guys, play one more game. I have to clean up the rec room.’
“That was the best news in the world — we got to play one more game.”
Arkansas-Little Rock will play at least one more game in the NCAA Tournament. The 12th-seeded Trojans will be underdogs again when they meet No. 4 seed Iowa State at the Pepsi Center on Saturday. After that, maybe another game. And they’re loving every minute.
“This team, we’ve got a lot of fight to us. We just keep coming,” said senior guard Josh Hagins. “We just play together. That’s really hard to find in college basketball.”
Hagins propelled the Trojans (30-4) on Thursday to an 85-83, double-overtime upset of No. 5 Purdue, one of the biggest teams in the country. His 3-pointer from 30 feet with only five seconds remaining helped erase a 14-point deficit in the final four minutes of regulation and force overtime.
The Trojans have enjoyed every minute since that stunner. Their locker room after Thursday’s game was a crack-up. Lis Shoshi, a 6-foot-11 junior center from Kosovo, couldn’t believe his shooting touch. His step-back corner 3-pointer in the final minute brought UALR within one point of Purdue.
“I shot 15 shots, bro!” he said to anybody who would listen. “I haven’t shot 15 shots in the past three games!”
After practice Friday at the Pepsi Center, Hagins and Shoshi held court like Key and Peele at a news conference. Shoshi explained that the Trojans would defer to their coach about a game plan.
“Good answer. I like that,” Hagins said to laughter.
“I’m getting good at this,” Shoshi said.
And when Shoshi couldn’t quite explain how fellow European centers at Gonzaga and Utah have played so well in Denver this week, Hagins came back again.
“That wasn’t so good an answer,” Hagins said.
“That was a hard question!” Shoshi said.
The Trojans may be the loosest, most fun-loving team left in the NCAA Tournament. But the Sun Belt Conference champs have a difficult task. They shut down Purdue by fronting the Boildermakers’ frontcourt players, keeping them out of the paint. Iowa State, though, is a fast-break team. The Cyclones can run opponents to exhaustion.
But even after Purdue dominated for 30 minutes Thursday, the final 10 minutes in regulation were enough for the Trojans to rally.
“Those kids believe they are going to win,” said Iowa State coach Steve Prohm. “They kept coming and they kept coming. Then Hagins made kind of a ‘March shot,’ I call them. Where you go, ‘How did that one go in?’ He rose to the moment.”
The madness of March basketball always finds a rooting favorite — a longshot band of mavericks for the country to rally around. If the Trojans leave Denver this weekend to play in the Sweet 16, they may be living in bubble, delightfully unaware.
“I turned my phone off yesterday at 11 a.m. before the game,” Beard said. “I turned it back on at about 8 because I wanted to check on my youngest daughter. And my phone had completely blown up. I mean, like, just destroyed. I have no idea who contacted me.
“So, if any of my friends or family or recruits are out there, I’m not getting a big head. I’m not turning into somebody else. My phone’s not working. But I hope you’ll text me again, so I can thank you.”
Nick Groke: ngroke@denverpost.com or @nickgroke
