Men’s basketball (7-2) lost 81-71 to the American University Eagles (6-4) at Bender Arena Wednesday night. 

The Eagles tied the game with just one second left after a long three-pointer by graduate student guard Colin Smalls, bringing the score to 60-60 and sending the game into overtime. During the extra 5 minutes, GW fell into foul trouble, leading the Revs to fall behind the Eagles’ 10-3 scoring run that would secure their win. 

Prior to this, the Revs’ lone overtime loss in the past three years was a 119-113 loss to Fordham University on Jan. 3.

Redshirt sophomore forward Darren Buchanan Jr. led the team with 24 points, followed by sophomore guard Jacoi Hutchinson with 20 points. Hutchinson had his season high in points along with completing five assists and seven rebounds. 

“He [Hutchinson] battled, he really battled with his back against the wall, he’s got good spirit and good fight to him,” Coach Caputo said. “He’s a tough dude.”

Ten of Buchanan’s points came from the free-throw line, out of 21 attempts. The team as a whole connected on only 48.1 percent of their attempts from the line, 13 for 27. American was successful on 75 percent of their free throws, 18 for 24.

Coming into the game off of three straight wins, the Revs received the tip-off with Buchanan opening up the scoring off a two-point jumper. The Eagles would respond with a three-point shot of their own from graduate forward Matt Rogers.

The Eagles defended the perimeter tightly, making it difficult for the Revolutionaries to make a shot beyond the arc. The Eagles found much more success than the Revs from the three point line, connecting on 13 3-pointers while the Revs didn’t make their first shot from deep until they were down 12 points in overtime. 

On the other end of the ball, the Revs struggled to push their perimeter defense but managed to defend well within the paint. American only scored 18 points in the paint, while GW scored 52. 

The Eagles went on a 7-2 run to end the half, with Rogers shooting a three-pointer to enter halftime with American up 28-22.

Going into the second half, the Eagles would open up the scoring with a three-pointer and go on a 7-0 run before the Revs would call their first timeout of the half. After the timeout break, Buchanan would open up the Revs scoring account with a two-point jumper of his own.

The Revs, down by a game-high 13 points, were led by Hutchinson, who scored ten points in the second half, helping the Revs go on a 13-3 run to bring down the deficit. 

At 5:45, the Revs would get their first lead since the first half with a score of 51-50 with points from Buchanan and Hutchinson, becoming a back-and-forth match with the teams trading buckets. The Revs would take the lead at the 1:51 minute mark 59-56 on a dunk from Castro, but being in foul trouble would allow the Eagles to capitalize. 

With a score of 60-57, Eagles’ guard Smalls would tie the game with only one second left in the second half to tie the game and send it into overtime.

Caputo said post-game that the decision not to foul up by three was because of the amount of time left in the game and “conventional wisdom.”

“I’m a foul guy,” Caputo said. “What I did tell them was, ‘If the guy wanted to turn his back to you, under eight seconds, you should foul him.’ With Jacoi, I was screaming foul. He decided not to, but it’s hard in that moment for the player to make the judgement. 14.5 seconds is a lot of time. Maybe I’ll do it next time, but most people would not foul with that much time on the clock.”

In overtime, GW would commit four fouls, including sophomore guard Trey Autry fouling out with five total. The Revs to fall behind with the Eagles opening the scoring with a three-pointer from Rogers. They would go on a 10-3 scoring run, dominating from beyond the arc and the Revs would lose the game by ten points, 81-71.

 “We’re still a work in progress, on top of that, we have an all-conference player that’s out for the season,” Caputo said. “It’s not the team we built in the summer, I think we are improved, I think the metrics would say we’re improved, but we’re very much a work in progress.” 

The Revs will face off next against the Old Dominion University Monarchs at the Ted Constant Convocation Center on Saturday, Dec. 7.