How an unlikely hero emerged for Tulane in historic win over Wichita State basketball
Pain is only temporary.
Or at least that’s what Tulane’s Nobal Days was telling himself as he stood planted in the paint, bracing for contact in the game’s final seconds from Wichita State’s Ricky Council barreling toward him.
He had correctly predicted Council’s route to the basket and now the winner and loser of Wednesday’s game would be determined if Days, a little-used sophomore for Tulane, was willing to sacrifice his body.
“The funny thing is,” Days told The Eagle, “I never took a charge a day in my life until I got to college.
“But I learned real quick the best way for me to make an impact is to basically just get run over. You have to stand in there and just take it. It’s kind of crazy, but it’s helped keep me on the floor.”
Days stood his ground, well outside the restricted area underneath the basket and in legal guarding position, allowing Council to run him over. That didn’t mean there wasn’t concern when he heard a whistle from referee Bill Elk and heard the crowd erupt when Council’s shot banked in for what would have been the game-winner with 0.4 seconds left.
“If you’ve been playing basketball for long enough, you can sort of tell when someone is going to take off,” Days said. “They take those two big steps and their eyes get real big. I got a little nervous there when everybody in the crowd was going crazy, but then I saw the ref make the charge signal.”
“It was the right call,” Tulane coach Ron Hunter added at the podium. “But it was a gutsy call, especially on the road.”
It was the dramatic ending to Tulane’s first win over Wichita State, a 68-67 victory, in a game that saw the Shockers blow a 16-point lead and fail to convert on their final chance on a baseline out of bounds throw-in with three seconds remaining.
Council caught a lob out to the three-point line, where he said afterward he was determined to try to get to the rim since a Tulane foul of any sort would send him to the free throw line. He pump-faked past the first defender before taking two power dribbles and launching himself at the rim just inside the foul line.
“I had three options,” Council explained. “When I caught it, I thought about shooting it. Then I pump-faked and I thought about the mid-range, but I felt like if I would have missed the mid-range I would have no chance to get a foul called. So I decided to attack.”
From Wichita State’s perspective, Council made the right move attacking the rim instead of settling for a jump shot — it was just upstaged by an excellent read by Days.
“I thought Ricky made a great play,” WSU teammate Tyson Etienne said. “He got in a bang-bang situation. It just depends on the ref. Some refs will call it and some refs won’t. I felt like he made the right play, but Nobal Days stepped up and made a game-winning play.”
Following the front-end of a bonus free throw miss by Tulane’s Sion James, WSU actually had 20.8 seconds and two timeouts to work with down the stretch.
The Shockers attempted to attack Tulane’s zone defense without calling a timeout, as WSU funneled the ball to Etienne and he drove down the right side of the zone defense before being trapped and calling timeout with 8.7 seconds left.
After allowing East Carolina’s best player, Tristen Newton, to take and make a game-tying three-pointer to send the game to overtime, where the Pirates handed Tulane its only conference loss, Hunter said the Green Wave learned their lesson.
“We were not going to let Etienne take that shot,” Hunter said.
Sure enough, Tulane showed the next time on the floor a switch to man defense with a double-team already on Etienne. It threw WSU for a loop and forced WSU coach Isaac Brown to call his last timeout.
The next time out, Joe Pleasant came up to set a rub screen to free up Etienne to receive the in-bounds pass. But from there, Etienne stumbled on his attempt to drive to the lane and was tied up for a jump-ball call. WSU retained possession, but only three seconds were left on the clock and it now had no timeouts to draw up a final play.
Once again, Tulane chose not to guard the in-bounder and used the extra defender to double team Etienne. When Etienne tried to come off a screen, Tulane’s Jalen Cook clung to him and the second defender was waiting for Etienne’s cut for the corner.
That forced Qua Grant to lob the pass to Council out on the perimeter and set off a chain of events that turned Days into an unlikely hero in New Orleans.
Days, in his third season at Tulane, has actually seen his playing time decrease each season. He’s not much of a scorer (he’s averaged 2.1 points in 66 career games) and he admits one of the things, maybe the only thing, that earns him playing time now is his knack for taking charges.
“I love Nobal Days, but he’s not even the best player in his own household,” Hunter said. “His mom is a better player.
“He’s not very athletic. He’s probably the least athletic kid I’ve had in my 32 years, but I’ll tell you what, he knows how to play. Just love the guy, absolutely love the guy.”
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