RUSSELLVILLE, Ark. — Despite powering back from a 10-point halftime deficit and holding the lead in the final seconds, the Arkansas Tech men's basketball team saw East Central snatch the victory away with just two ticks left, as the Tigers got a jumper from Deron Hill to go ahead and held on through a wild final moments for a 70-68 victory Saturday afternoon.

The second-half comeback was helped along by a stellar night from Mike Balogun, who went for a game-high 23 points, including 15 after the break. He shot 5-of-7 from the field and 4-of-6 from 3-point range in the second half as well. Clarence Willard added 12 points, six rebounds and eight assists off the bench, and Nick Wayman posted 10 points and a game-high eight boards.

"East Central is extremely good, one of the best teams we've played this year," head coach Chad Kline said. "To their credit, they fought til the end. It's a 40-minute game, and usually going into halftime down 10, you're a little bit worried. I actually felt pretty good. They went on a couple runs in the first half, but we had a couple runs in us as well. I told these guys at the beginning it was going to come down to the last minute or two of the game and who was going to make the plays. They did and we didn't."

After not leading since they were up 7-6 early in the first half, the Wonder Boys (8-9, 4-5 Great American Conference) bounced back from a 39-29 halftime hole with some sharp shooting and rebounding. Balogun cut the lead to three with a 3-pointer at the 12:26 mark, and made it 47-46 a minute later on another triple. A Branden Williams dunk gave Tech the lead and capped an 8-0 run with 10:57 to go. A pair of buckets from Williams—who netted eight of his 10 points in the final 11 minutes of the game—tied the contest each time. His layup with 7:26 left made it 54-52, and the Wonder Boys would not trail again until Hill's basket with two seconds remaining.

A three-point play from Nick Wayman with 3:39 left pushed the lead to five over the Tigers (12-5, 6-3 GAC), but even though the Tech defense forced the guests to miss all three of their shots over the next two-plus minutes, the Wonder Boys couldn't get a point either. Stirling Thomas' layup at 1:17 and 3-pointer with 42 seconds left tied it up for ECU. Jay Murphy went to the line for the Wonder Boys with seven seconds remaining, hitting one of two for a 68-67 lead before Hill's dagger.

The final two seconds saw three timeouts and three more replay reviews. In between, the Wonder Boys couldn't connect on an inbounds pass after advancing the ball to midcourt, giving the ball back to the Tigers. Tech fouled on the inbounds, and Thomas made one free throw to stretch the lead to two points. He missed the second, and the Wonder Boys couldn't get a full-court heave off in time.

"This one is definitely going to sting," Kline said. "I thought we fought hard. Other than the turnovers, I thought that's about as well as we've played as a team. If we can play like that on most nights, we can win. East Central is extremely good, one of the best East Central teams I've seen, and they made the plays at the end."

The Wonder Boys shot 24-of-47 for the game, including 14-of-24 in the second half, and won the rebounding game 34-30.

Tech takes the court again Thursday evening at Harding for a 7:30 p.m. tip.