In overtime. An in-bounds play with :00.9 to play. A bounce pass, a layup.

There is no way to win with 9/10th of a second to play because there is no way to throw a pass, catch it, and shoot it in 9/10ths of a second – unless . . .

… . your in-bounds passer can practically hand it to somebody directly under the basket, which of course can never be done unless . . .

. . . your in-bounds passer is herself directly under the basket, a step out of bounds, and she drops a bounce pass to her biggest teammate coming off a screen into the painted area, which of course can never happen because . . .

. . . the other team won’t let that happen, no no, they won’t, because they stack three or four defenders in the paint and force the other team to throw a pass to a shooter outside, and that shooter, knowing that time is disappearing like a sudden breath, will squeeze off a shot that clangs loudly ….

Well. Stuff happens. And Pleasant Plains’ only big, a 6-foot junior, Anna Weber, took the bounce pass up, off the board, in, buzzer, game over.

In such games it’s possible to find a dozen ways the loser might have won. All you need know is that the Potters had a six-point lead with 3:12 left in the third quarter. At such a moment, the best teams step on the poor suckers’ throats. Instead, Pleasant Plains outscored Morton, 11-0, in those three minutes and 12 seconds to take a lead they never lost. The plains people had some luck in there. They made three 3’s, the last banked in from 22 feet at :08. It's also best to remember, winners make their luck.

"In the end," Bob Becker, the Potters' coach, said,"it doesn't come down to one play. Our ball handling, our rebounding needed to be better."

Pleasant Plains is a Class 2A team with a 4-3 record that I, for one, had never heard of until it showed up on the Potters’ schedule last month. It’s southwest of Springfield somewhere, and if not in the middle of nowhere, it’s for sure on nowhere’s edge. The town is 800 people, the school has 406 students. (Must be some school districts combining there.) Morton is 17,117 with almost a thousand students, not to mention four Class 3A state championships, a 26-6 record last season, and has good reason this season to hope for more of all that. The Potters were 3-0 before that last shot tonight. They get back on the horse Wednesday night in Lincoln. (Edit - Friday at Canton)

Morton scoring tonight: Paige Selke 16, Ellie VanMeenen 14, Abby VanMeenen 7, Abby Brooks 7 (including a layup and a 3 that brought Morton from 45-40 down to 45-all at 2:05 of regulation), Julia Laufenberg 3.