ST. LOUIS - After being shutout in the first half of the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament championship game, Osiris Eldridge took it upon himself to carry his teammates.
Eldridge scored 21 second-half points with a variety of offensive moves. At times he attacked the basket. Other times he drained deep 3-point shots. Yet, his heroics were not enough as Northern Iowa defeated Illinois State 60-57 in overtime.
The Chicago native was named the tournament's Most Outstanding Player, but the Panthers captured the automatic NCAA Tournament bid with their three-point win.
Illinois State head coach Tim Jankovich said he had trouble finding the right thing to say to his team, which has been on the losing end of the last two MVC Tournament title games.
"I didn't say anything for quite some time because I was searching for profound, and come to find out, there was no profound today," Jankovich said. "If you haven't been through it, I don't even know how to describe the pain. You have to live this pain to understand it."
Northern Iowa (23-10) took a 27-19 halftime lead as Illinois State's solid shooting against conference co-champion Creighton in the semifinal round did not carry over. The Panthers will make their first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2006, and fifth overall, and will wait a week to see where they will be seeded.
As for Eldridge and the Redbirds (24-9), they will also play the waiting game. A much more agonizing one, at that.
However, it was Eldridge's second-half performance that pushed Illinois State into a see-saw game down the stretch.
The Valley's Preseason Player of the Year intensified his defense, opening the second period with a steal from Kwadzo Ahelegbe. After scoring 13 first-half points, Ahelegbe was held to only four points after intermession, due, in part, to Eldridge's suffocating defense.
"(Jankovich) knows what I can do, and he just told us to guard. That's what we weren't doing in the first half," Eldridge said of the second-half turnaround. "I came out and guarded, and that opened up my offense.
The 6-foot-3-inch guard added his block of a shot by Northern Iowa's 7-foot-1-inch center Jordan Eglseder helped spark the rally.
"Sometimes I want to say like I wish that when I get beat to the basket, our bigs can get a blocked shot," Eldridge explianed. "I needed an opportunity to get a block at the time and I took it.
"I guess it was a big time in the game where we needed something to happen, and we needed a stop, so I took it upon myself to go try to help out as much as I could.
As his defensive prowess picked up, so did his offense. Eldrdige finally scored his first two points with 18 minutes 4 seconds remaining in the game after a steal by guard Emmanuel Holloway. The dunk sparked a scoring streak which featured a pair of shots from well behind the NBA 3-point line.
But down the stretch, the Redbirds' leading scorer struggled as he fought through foot cramps as he tried to lift his team to a win, and the automatic bid in the NCAA Tournament.
Eldridge shot an airball as regulation expired, which would have won the game, as well as what would have been a game-tying 3-point field goal from the corner as time expired.
Despite the shortcomings of one of the league's best player down the stretch, Jankovich said he was proud of Eldridge.
"It was a tremendous performance of will, heart, fight and toughness; and it was really fun to watch," Jankovich said. "That was a heck of a performance by a guy that just decided that he was going to will his team to a championship, and he dearn near got that done."
Luis C. Medina is on location in St. Louis and can be reached at lcm1986@siu.edu.
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