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San Diego State pulls off surprise OT win over No. 6 Houston at Players Era Festival

San Diego State pulls off surprise OT win over No. 6 Houston at Players Era Festival

NCAA basketball: Louisiana-Lafayette at HoustonNovember 13, 2024; Houston, Texas, USA; Houston Cougars head coach Kelvin Sampson looks on during the second half against the Louisiana Ragin Cajuns at Fertitta Center. The Cougars defeated the Ragin Cajuns 91-45. Mandatory attribution: Maria Lysaker-Imagn Images

Miles Byrd scored 18 points and San Diego State upset No. 6 Houston with a 73-70 overtime victory in the third-place game at the Players Era Festival in Las Vegas on Saturday afternoon.

Jared Coleman-Jones scored 16 points, Pharaoh Compton scored 13 off the bench and Nick Boyd scored all 12 points after halftime for San Diego State (4-2).

Emanuel Sharp scored 23 points and LJ Cryer 21 for Houston (4-3), which lost in overtime to No. 9 Alabama on Tuesday night, the tournament’s opening night.

Both teams traded leads in the first half of overtime before Byrd’s reverse layup gave the Aztecs a 70-67 lead with 1:28 left. Boyd then gave San Diego State the lead with a layup with 43 seconds left.

Magoon Gwath made one of two free throws with 12 seconds left to extend the lead to 73-70 before Cryer missed a 3 with two seconds left.

Coleman-Jones hit an off-balance, one-foot shot across the 3-point line to cut the score to 65-63 with 57 seconds left in regulation. J’Wan Roberts then missed the front end of a 1-on-1 situation and Byrd grabbed an offensive rebound on the other side, was fouled and made both free throws to tie the score at 65 with 13 seconds left.

San Diego State scored the first six points of the game and the Cougars didn’t score until Joseph Tugler made a layup with 15:24 left in the half.

The Aztecs stayed ahead until Houston went on a 13-0 run to take a 20-12 lead with 6:17 left in the first half.

Sharp scored the first 10 points of the run, seven of them on free throws, before Cryer capped it off with a 3-pointer.

San Diego State managed to cut the deficit to three twice before Houston took a 30-25 lead at the break.

Houston then scored the first six points of the second half to take its largest lead of the game at 36-25.

Coleman-Jones tried to spark an upswing by scoring four straight points for the Aztecs, but another three-pointer from Cryer pushed the lead back to double digits.

Byrd hit a 3 with 11:44 left to cut the deficit to four. but Houston scored five points in a row.

Boyd cut it to 54-52 with 7:40 left after sinking three-pointers on consecutive possessions.

–Field level media

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