Golden Lion fans owe team better from here on out

Bluff City Ballin’

By Pat Geans

For the first three and a half quarters, the UAPB Texas Southern game was about as exciting as watching gas prices go up again.

Who would have guessed that by the end of the night a game that will go down in Southwest Athletic Conference basketball history and end up on ESPN highlight shows would break out.

Apparently tired of hearing how they can’t win on their home court during SWAC play, Golden Lion senior guard Larry Williams did his best Black Eyed Peas impersonation with his personal rendition of “Let’s Get It Started in Here.”

With UAPB down by 11 with about eight minutes to play, Williams sparked a 10-0 Golden Lion run with eight points. Golden Lion senior forward William Byrd also got in on the act with a key basket during the run. The next thing you know — the Golden Lions trailed only 51-50 with 5:15 to play.

Give Texas Southern credit. Despite coming into the game with a subpar 6-20, 5-8 SWAC record, they refused to roll over and never relinquished the lead. The Tigers led 62-56 with only 39 seconds left before another Golden Lion senior — Marcelle Goins — went old school like MC Hammer’s ‘Let’s Get It Started.”

After a slow start on the night, Goins suddenly got hotter than Barak Obama with a trio of triples down the stretch. The first kept the Lions alive at 62-59. The next one was dialed in from NBA range to keep UAPB to within 64-62 with 23 seconds to play.

But as we all know, Goins was saving his best for last. All seemed lost when UAPB got the ball trailing by three with seconds remaining. Goins, however, secured a spot in Golden Lion lore and on Sportscenter with a desperation heave from mid-court that beat the buzzer.

Da-da-dunt. Da-da-dunt.

The shot not only sent the game into overtime but H.O. Clemons Arena into pandemonium.

For most of the game, all I could hear was Pine Bluff’s No. 1 sports fan — Greg — leading the cheers for some “Defense on the Flo!” But starting with Williams’ and Goins’ theatrics and culminating in that final three, the floor at Clemons Arena needed the national guard.

The restraint the UAPB faithful had managed to display in adherence to public address announcer John Jacobs’ admonitions not to throw frisbees went straight out the proverbial window. Not only that, some fans must have thought they were at a tent revival there was so much shouting and running around with arms raised to heaven.

Despite the demographic make up of the crowd, more than a few chuckleheads got caught up in a form of mass blonde moment and ran out onto the floor. I happened to be sitting next to a SWAC evaluator of officials on press row and he informed me that the refs had no choice but to call a technical foul.

Now if the shot had actually won the game, I would have had a little more empathy for the airheads that got carried away. It was probably one of the most exciting moments in UAPB basketball history — no doubt. But if I’ve learned anything about Pine Bluff sports fans in my brief tenure here so far, it’s that they sports savvy.

So after watching players like Williams, Goins, Byrd, Allen Smith, George Davis and company put up that kind of heroic effort to get a much-needed conference win, how some fans can be so clueless as to storm the court when the game was not over is as much a mystery to me as how we can have all these presidential debates and the subject of gas prices not even come up.

You may be able to debate whether that lapse of judgment cost the Golden Lions that game. But, the fact is that UAPB fans everywhere took a hit on Monday night for the over exuberance of a few. That’s the bad part and unfortunately it can not be undone now.

What can be done is for the next time the Golden Lions take the floor at Clemons Arena, UAPB fans can come out in force and support the team the way they did during the last few minutes of the Texas Southern game. I’m sure every team in the SWAC is a little intimidated after watching those highlights.

Win or loose, coach Van Holt and his team deserve that much. From what I saw during the last part of Monday’s game, I’d be willing to wager. If the Lions get that kind of support — minus the blonde moment of course, this home losing steak is about to come to an end.