It took a few extra minutes of overtime but No. 6 Davidson survived and advanced in the second round of the Atlantic 10 tournament Thursday night at PPG Paints Arena.
Sean Logan’s two baskets, and Josh Scovens’ short jumper in overtime helped the No. 6-seeded Wildcats earn a 64-59 win over No. 14 Loyola Chicago.
Loyola’s Kayde Dotson drilled a 3-pointer in the final second of regulation to send the game into overtime tied at 56.
Davidson (20-12) advanced to play No. 3 Saint Joseph’s (21-10) in the quarterfinals at 7:30 p.m. Friday.
“Finding a way to win when your season’s on the line, when it’s an elimination game, that hopefully goes a long way to hopefully not needing to be in that position again,” Davidson coach Matt McKillop said. “But I’m sure that that will at some point, and we’ve done it, and we can point to it.”
Roberts Blums scored 14 points, Scovens had 13, and Devin Brown added 11 points and eight rebounds for Davidson, which advanced to the A-10 quarterfinals for the ninth time in 11 seasons. Logan blocked seven shots.
Center Miles Rubin had 20 points and Alexander Richardson had a career-high 14 points to lead Loyola (9-24), which lost to Davidson for the third time this season.
“I’m proud of my group,” Loyola coach Drew Valentine said. “We made some memories and definitely will have a lot to, obviously, improve on going into next season.”
Dotson credited his coaches for trusting him to take the game-tying shot at the end of regulation.
“I mean the coaches just instill that confidence in me every single day,” said Dotson, who had 11 points, including three 3-pointers. “They tell me to shoot it. … So I just had that confidence. I knew we were down three, and somebody had to make a play. I didn’t want the season to end. I just gave it everything I had, so I stepped up and made a shot.”
Davidson will quickly turn its attention to St. Joseph’s in Friday’s quarterfinals. The teams split their regular-season series, with Davidson winning 62-56 in Philadelphia on Jan. 3 and falling 70-67 at home March 4.
“It’s very beneficial to us that we played them eight days ago,” McKillop said. “We lost by three. We made a great comeback. We were down 15. We went with the 1-3-1 zone. It was very effective. Sam Brown was spectacular.”