Tide gets buzzer-beating lift, wins Vegas Classic

Christian Laettner lives thanks to Alabama coach Mark Gottfried.

Laettner’s miracle shot, which lifted Duke past Kentucky in the 1992 NCAA Tournament, was relived somewhat at the end of the first half of Sunday’s Las Vegas Classic championship game.

Alabama’s Demetrius Jemison took the ball out under his own basket with 2.8 seconds left in the half and the Crimson Tide trailing Iowa State by two points. Richard Hendrix grabbed his length-of-the-court heave just inside the foul line and deposited in the basket just before the halftime buzzer to pull Alabama even.

The play gave Alabama a huge emotional lift going into the second half, and it outscored the Cyclones by 15 points the rest of the way en route to an 83-68 win in the title game at the Orleans Arena.

“We should probably start calling it ‘Laettner,’ ” Gottfried said of the play. “We used it the other night at the end of the first half against Wofford. Same result.

“For that play to work, you need two things — someone who can make the pass and someone with great hands who knows what to do with it once he catches it. We got a great pass from Demetrius, and Richard has unbelievable hands.”

Hendrix, who was one of three Alabama players on the all-tournament team (Most Valuable Player Mykal Riley and Alonzo Gee were the others), said he didn’t think the Cyclones were ready for it.

“A play like that can give a team a big spark, and we took advantage of it,” he said.

Hendrix had been sitting on the bench with two personal fouls for nearly the entire final eight minutes of the half when Gottfried decided to take a chance and put him back on the floor.

Alabama (9-3) made its first five 3-pointers and finished the game making 11 of 17 from long distance. With Gee scoring 23 points, Riley 19 and Hendrix 18, the Cyclones (7-5) were unable to keep pace.

“They hit all those 3s, and it was hard to come back from that,” Iowa State coach Greg McDermott said.

• Purdue 72, Missouri State 70 — Chris Kramer’s layup with 14 seconds left put the Boilermakers (8-4) ahead to stay in a back-and-forth game that had 11 lead changes and was tied 16 times.

Missouri State (7-5) had two chances to tie in the final seconds, but Deven Mitchell’s short jumper missed, and the putback attempt by Drew Richards was off the mark.

Scott Martin scored 17 points for Purdue and Mitchell 19 for the Bears.

• Wofford 70, Bethune-Cookman 59 — The Terriers (7-4) went 3-1 in the tournament as Shane Nichols scored 23 points and Wofford dominated on the boards, holding a 30-16 rebounding edge. John Holmes scored 21 points for the Wildcats (5-7).

• Texas-Pan American 78, Texas Southern 60 — The Broncs blew open a 56-50 game with a 20-0 second-half run.

Brian Burrell had six 3-pointers and finished with 20 points for Pan American (7-9).

The Tigers (1-11) dropped their 11th straight game.