Stony Brook overcomes 22-point deficit to pull off incredible comeback win

With college basketball season tipping off around the nation, a matchup between Stony Brook and George Washington University isn’t going to excite most people who aren’t already fans of those schools. But when one team comes back from a 22-point deficit to win in overtime, it’s worth talking about.

That team is the Stony Brook Seawolves. In their first game of the season on Tuesday night, they found themselves down 22-0 to the George Washington Colonials after 10 minutes of missed shot after missed shot. They finally got their first basket on a free throw with 10:04 left in the first half.

That sounds like a recipe for an easy blowout win for the Colonials, right? If you were for some reason watching this game, you might feel safe to start flipping channels and seeing which rerun of “Law & Order” was playing on cable.

But it wasn’t safe, which is why college basketball is so great. GW was still leading at 34-24 at halftime, but Stony Brook had done some work. In the 10 minutes between Stony Brook’s first basket of the game and halftime, they’d scored more than 20 points, held GW to just 12 points, and cut the deficit by half.

The Seawolves spent the second half trying to catch up to the Colonials, but were still down by 11 points with 11 minutes left to play. But as those final minutes ticked by, GW’s lead began to shrink. With 7:28 left, Stony Brook was down by eight. At six minutes left, they were down by six. 90 seconds later, they were down by just four.

With 26 seconds left to play, Stony Brook’s Akwasi Yeboah hit a 3-point jumper to narrow GW’s lead to three, the smallest it had been since the opening minutes of the game. A free throw brought them to within two. And with just one second left and the game on the line, Yeboah made a layup that tied the game. From 22 points down, they had roared back to take GW to overtime. By that point, GW had run out of gas. They never led in overtime, tying the score just once. Stony Brook emerged victorious by a score of 77-74.

It’s just the first game of the season, but overcoming a 22-point deficit to win in overtime is a heckuva way to start things off.

– – – – – –

Liz Roscher is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email her at lizroscher@yahoo.com or follow her on Twitter at @lizroscher.

More from Yahoo Sports:
• Eric Adelson: Florida vote proves a big win for NFL stars
• Ex-Colts star elected. How did other athlete-candidates do?
• David Beckham scores a big election night win
• Jerry Jones called out by former Cowboys star