The McMurry men led by 13 at the half. They were up 11 with five minutes to go. The lead was nine with 1:51 left and was seven entering the final minute.

Then, seniors happened.

Hardin-Simmons senior Zach Pickelman, who came in averaging 20 points per game but was held scoreless in the first half, hit a three-pointer in the corner to cut the lead to 61-57. After Terrance Booker made one of two foul shots for McMurry, senior guard Matt Brackett, finding nobody open, took the ball to the hole for HSU, cutting the lead to 62-59 with 30 seconds left.

Booker again made one of two foul shots. Then Brackett did the same thing — as a play to get Pickelman open was slow to develop, he took the ball to the hole one more time, cutting the lead to two points with 16 seconds left.

As McMurry was attempting to push the ball upcourt and stay away from HSU’s foul attempts, it threw the ball away, giving Hardin-Simmons the ball at the other end of the floor with nine seconds left. And Pickelman got the basketball with three seconds left, faked his man up in the air, got himself a wide-open shot and buried it with 0.9 remaining.

Pickelman stole the ensuing inbounds pass and it was bedlam, with fans pouring out of the stands and dancing on the floor at Hardin-Simmons.

The women’s game saw McMurry score the first seven points and hold a 16-6 lead but McMurry was stuck on 16 for an awful long time. Hardin-Simmons went on an 18-0 run to take a 24-16 lead. McMurry scored 10 of the final 13 points to make it a two-point game at halftime. The second half featured seven ties and nine lead changes.

Although the status of Hope/Calvin as the No. 1 rivalry in Division III cannot be questioned, McMurry/Hardin-Simmons is one of several in contention for the No. 2 slot. Amherst/Williams and Wooster/Wittenberg are on that list as well, as would be Bates/Bowdoin on the women’s side, and my fried brain is probably missing others. (And for those of you who would push for their own rivalry as being No. 1, let’s see you put 11,000 fans in the seats first. That’s the bar to reach right now.)

Great night of basketball, and a great capper to the trip. Thanks to the folks at McMurry for making this journey possible.

Now I’m going to go sleep for three days and I’ll re-emerge for the Mount Union/St. John Fisher football game. 🙂

U.S. HWY. 84, Texas — After 900 miles of traveling Texas roads, I’ve learned a few things.

It’s amazing what happens when roads don’t freeze. I drove quite a bit of Texas highway and didn’t see a pothole other than on an interstate around San Antonio. When roads don’t freeze, ice doesn’t force cracks and those don’t turn into potholes. How refreshing.

Drivers are polite. Excessively. Having driven a lot of U.S. highways, many of them two lanes, I’ve never been in a state where a driver will get over and drive on the shoulder so you can pass them. Most places I’m more likely to have someone try to speed up to cut me off.

Lot of small towns. A lot. Really, a lot. Saw a lot of places with population in the triple digits. Not Coleman, Texas, though. Woo hoo!

And it’s a long way in between them. It was so far from one town to the next on Monday that I nearly ran out of gas even though the warning light hadn’t come on when I passed the previous gas station. Note to the Big 3: Vehicles in Texas should be required to have their gas light come on earlier.

Cactus. Tons and tons of cactus. And goats. But only two longhorns. Perhaps UT-Austin should change its mascot. 🙂

Gas prices are OK but not great. I figured gas would be cheaper here than I’ve ever seen. But it was about 10-15 cents more expensive than New Jersey. Still, 15 cents cheaper than I’ve been paying in Connecticut.

And, well, I already knew this, but things are pretty far apart here. All I hope is that I avoid the propeller planes tonight and get a jet. Then I can sleep without having to worry about my stomach contents. 🙂

Been a good time. Will post separately on the Day 5 games.

SAN ANTONIO – “You mean ‘just come to campus and look for the red brick building’ didn’t work?”

That’s what Trinity SID Justin Parker asked me a few minutes after I sat down at press row here, about seven and a half minutes into the game with Trinity trailing Millsaps 16-8. Uhh, no, and while I knew how to get here, let’s just say it’s not been the best morning. But I got to see a lot of campus. And red brick buildings.

These Sunday morning games can’t be much easier on the players either. Millsaps’ trip this time hasn’t been too difficult but the second day of a trip including DePauw and Centre or Oglethorpe and Sewanee can’t be easy.

Even more so in the UAA, which plays a similar schedule and has teams going from Atlanta to Cleveland, from St. Louis to Chicago or from New York City to Boston.

Trinity has taken a 20-19 lead. The Tigers have given uniform numbers to 17 players, 11 of them freshmen and sophomores. It’s been a ragged first half, with the times shooting a combined 16-for-53. And seemingly worse than that since I got in the building.

A few minutes to tipoff here between Howard Payne and LeTourneau. Spent some time outside in the parking lot listening to the football playoffs, updating D3football.com, etc.

Already have been warned by more than one person that this women’s game is not likely to be much of a contest and that’s fine. I’m really here to see Meia Daniels play. She’s averaging 22.7 points per game and in not an excessive number of minutes seeing as Howard Payne has outscored opponents by an average of 36.7 a game.

Brownwood Coliseum (disdainfully referred to by other ASC fans as the Brownwood Mausoleum) isn’t a bad concept for an arena but needs better lightning, a new floor, and probably better locker room facilities, though I have not seen them. The city owns it, though, not the school, so HPU doesn’t have control over those things.

Will check in during the game but also will be popping around looking at football and taking pictures of this game — if I can.

GEORGETOWN, Texas — Got a bit of a late start to this post – they’re either having some network issues at Southwestern or my laptop just isn’t agreeing with the connection here. The athletic director (courtesy of Southwestern assistant coach Allison Wooley) got me a department machine that could connect to the secure campus network, however, so all’s well.

Drove here from Abilene this afternoon, down U.S. 183 almost the entire way. I’ve often pondered taking U.S. routes instead of interstates – imagine taking U.S. 1 from Virginia to Connecticut, for example, through the heart of every city in between. If only I had 12 hours to kill. I took U.S. 40 once to Washington & Jefferson instead of the Pennsylvania Turnpike.

Went through some pretty small towns – in fact, this area of Texas reminds me a lot of eastern Iowa, where we have relatives. Lots of rolling hills and farmland.

Of course, Iowa doesn’t have any cactus.

Listening to the radio was an adventure as well. Here’s what one trip through the dial sounded like: Rush Limbaugh, country music, Christmas music, country Christmas music (seriously), preaching, Spanish-language preaching.