Trailing by five with eight minutes left in the game, Williams saw a familiar situation.
The Ephs were looking for a repeat of the regular-season meeting between the two teams, in which Williams hung around all game before burying the Jumbos in the final minute under a barrage of threes.
This time, Williams didn't get the chance, as the Jumbos put the Ephs away with a 10-0 spurt and ran away with a 101-89 victory, propelling them to a NESCAC semifinal matchup with Trinity on Saturday and ending sixth-seeded Williams' season.
In a game in which the Ephs held Tufts' leading scorer senior tri-captain Dan Martin to 16 points, a trio of Jumbos crossed the 20-point mark to lead the team to its highest offensive output of the season.
"We have a bunch of guys on our team that can score and put up numbers and every night a different guy can step up," sophomore Jeremy Black said.
This time it was sophomore Jake Weitzen, who hit seven of nine shots from the field, including both of his three-pointers, in just 24 minutes to lead the Jumbos with 21 points. He was joined by four other Jumbos who scored in double-digits, including 20 points apiece from junior Brian Kumf and junior tri-captain Dave Shepherd, matching a career high for Kumf and surpassing one for Shepherd.
The first half looked eerily similar to the regular-season meeting between the two teams, as the Ephs came out on fire from downtown, connecting on eight of 14 shots from beyond the arc in the first half. The Jumbos mixed it up offensively, staying on top with a mix of perimeter shooting and paint play.
Tufts took a 32-20 lead on a lay-up by Martin. Williams cut the lead to three with four seconds in the half before Shepherd took the ball the length of the floor for a left-handed buzzer-beater that took several trips around the rim before falling.
At halftime, the Jumbos addressed Williams' hot hand and made the necessary defensive adjustments.
"We definitely made an attempt to stay home and stay with our man and not help out so much, so we'd be able to get in their faces on the outside shots, and I think it worked pretty well," sophomore guard Ryan O'Keefe said.
The Ephs did not go quietly, however, staying just close enough to keep the Jumbos looking over their shoulders.
"There were a lot of similarities [to the regular-season game]," Shepherd said. "We were up the whole game again and they made a huge run. Then we went back up. It was always in the back of our mind that they were going to make a big run at the end."
That feeling of d?©j? vu was violently interrupted, however, as Kumf slammed home a right-handed dunk with 7:51 remaining in the game.
"That's a big play," Shepherd said. "You don't see many guys dunk the ball when the team is playing zone. It was just a swing of momentum."
Kumf wasn't finished. He took a pass from Weitzen on the next play, hitting a lay-up and drawing a foul. He converted the three-point play, scoring the first five points of a 10-point spurt that put Tufts up 84-69, got the crowd fired up, and gave the Jumbos the breathing room they needed.
At that point, Shepherd took over. On the next possession, he took a pass from Weitzen and darted under the hoop for a left-handed lay-up, drawing a foul from Williams freshman Kevin Snyder and converting the three-point play. The run was enough to bring the packed crowd at Cousens Gym to a roar.
"That was the best crowd we've seen since we've been here," Kumf said. "They were great. It's awesome playing in front of a bunch of fans."
While the Ephs made a desperation run that cut the lead down to six with 55 seconds left, time had all but run out on their season.
"After that run, we were just kind of rolling," Kumf said. "We knew we had it. We weren't playing not to lose; we were playing to win."
Shepherd commented on the Jumbos' late lead and their ability to hit from the line down the stretch.
"It just changes everything from a back-and-forth nail-biter to who can make foul shots," Shepherd said. "They had to execute and make shots and all we had to do was make foul shots. It was nice to be in the driver's seat at the end of the game."
The win was a painful one for the Jumbos. Black jammed a finger on his right hand with four minutes left in the first half and O'Keefe dislocated his shoulder in the second half. While Black was able to tape his hand and return the second half, O'Keefe missed the rest of the game and his status is still uncertain for this weekend's semifinal game.
"My shoulder's doing pretty good," O'Keefe said. "It was really sore yesterday but it's a lot better today. It's too early to determine [O'Keefe's status for this weekend], but if it keeps improving day by day, I don't see why I shouldn't be ready for Saturday."
On Saturday, the Jumbos will travel to Amherst to take on Trinity with a chance to advance to the NESCAC Championship on the line.
