Belmont, CA -- The Urban Knights men's basketball team had a game stolen from right under their noses on Thursday night, as an outstanding overtime effort ended in a buzzer-beating 57-55 defeat against Bay Area rival Notre Dame de Namur. The Argonauts made a layup off an inbounds play with only 0.5 seconds left on the clock, after the Knights tied it up in the waning seconds of regulation for their second overtime loss of the season. 

The Knights scored 18 points in the first half and went on to double that output in the second half and overtime. Ameer Shamsud-din led all scorers with 24 points, and Hunter Hayden had a double-double with 11 points and 10 rebounds. William Overton, Jr. scored 15 points and added six rebounds in the loss.

"I think Notre Dame slowed the tempo down a lot last night," said head coach Mark Sembrowich. "We certainly would have liked to score more than 18 points. We battled back in the second half, and a lot of that was due to the fact that we were able to make some stops defensively. We executed when we needed to to help get us back into it."

Academy of Art fought back from a seven-point deficit at halftime to take the lead on an Overton 3-pointer with 6:03 to go in the game. Then a jumper by Shamsud-din pushed it to a six-point lead with just over three minutes to go. The Argos rallied and briefly took the lead again, but Shamsud-din made the game-tying free throw with 28 seconds to go to send it to extra time.

"Ameer was in foul trouble in the first half, but I thought he gave us a large boost," Sembrowich said. "A lot of that was due to the fact that he really defended. He stepped up defensively and really made some plays."

Once the game was in overtime, the teams were evenly matched in the extra period. Hayden made one of two free throws to put the Urban Knights up by four, but Wesley White came up with four straight points to tie it again at 51-51. Shamsud-din countered an NDNU layup with two more from the charity stripe, and Aaron Anderson made one of two to put ART U up by two with only seven seconds to go.

Eric Bell of the Argonauts made a layup with under a second to go to make it seem like the game was headed to a second extra period. But as the Knights took the ball out with 0.7 seconds left, the NDNU pressure forced a turnover and the home team got one more chance underneath their own basket. On the inbounds play, Trent Henwood broke free off a screen and had just enough time to catch and shoot before the buzzer sounded.

The two teams shot the exact same percentage from the field (37.7%) and were evenly matched on the boards (ART U - 37, NDNU - 39). The teams were also identical in turnovers (19) and the Knights actually held the advantage from the free-throw line, making 11 free shots to the Argos' five. 

"I think there were chances to win it in regulation, and we ended up going to overtime" Sembrowich said. "It's one of the most disappointing losses, to lose like that, and I really feel bad for our guys, who came back and played hard the whole game. We felt bad last night, but we're definitely going to regroup this weekend and be ready for next week."