Radford Upsets Georgetown 82-80 in Double Overtime

It seemed like the Radford Highlanders were one way or another going to fall victim to a sad narrative in the Verizon Center against Georgetown, but Rashun Davis had other ideas.

Radford comes into this season as a middle of the road pick in the Big South.  Gone is their maestro of a point guard R.J. Price and gone is their do-it-all forward Javonte Green. What Radford does bring back to the table though is experience. Rashun Davis, Cameron Jones, and YaYa Anderson are about as an experienced of a backcourt you're going to find at any level. Mike Jones also has veteran, but rather pedestrian (in the past) bigs in Kion Brown and Brandon Holcomb. Radford mixed this experience in with four freshmen who saw action in this matinee and sophomore Justin Cousins who got the start in Chinatown.

The Highlanders and Hoyas were tied at 33 in the half and you thought this might be one of those games where a superior team really flexes their dominance and pulls away in the second half. The Hoyas didn't have much to flex and actually found themselves down by five points to Radford with just over 40 seconds left in regulation.

After a Mike Jones timeout Radford seemingly succumb to their nerves missing the front end of two one and ones and turning the ball over all in a 22 second span. The Highlanders snafus allowed Isaac Copeland to nail a three for the Hoyas and L.J. Peak to convert a layup with 28 seconds left to tie the game up at 64.

Georgetown fans likely took a deep breath and thought their team would pull away in overtime, but clearly that wasn't the case. Scoring was sparse in the first overtime and the Hoyas once again had to come from behind with a three point deficit with 37 seconds left. That's when D'Vauntes Smith-Rivera hit a free throw and later converted a layup to tie the game back up and force a second overtime.

It was Radford's time to come back in the second overtime as Smith-Rivera got another layup with just over a minute to play to put Georgetown up 80-79. No one else would score the rest of the way until this:

Davis, the hero, finished the game with 28 points, 6 assists, and 4 rebounds. It was the first time Davis eclipsed the 20 point mark since March, 2014 against UNC Asheville. Cam Jones was right behind Davis with 20 points and 7 rebounds. Meanwhile, Kion Brown had 10 points and 10 rebounds to register his first double-double since January 2014 against Hampton.

Radford will once again play the underdog on Monday night when they make the short trip down I-95 from Washington, DC to Richmond for a clash with the VCU Rams. Highalnders' head coach is a former assistant at VCU and you can bet that he has first year head coach Will Wade's attention now.