Nearly eight years later, Mike Deane, the former Wagner basketball coach, can remember when Sacred Heart almost beat his team at the buzzer on Valentine’s Day 2008.
“It was halfway in; then it popped back out,” Deane, now an assistant at James Madison, said of the would-be game-winner.
Instead of a Sacred Heart victory, the game went to double overtime and ended with Wagner winning, 100-92. The Seahawks won all five of their overtime games that season, and 9 of 10 games decided by 5 or fewer points.
Advanced basketball analysts have a statistic to describe teams like the 2007-8 Seahawks, whose exceptional record in close games improved their expected record of about 16-15 to an actual record of 23-8.