Twice before, Romeo Langford had been in a near-identical situation, only to come up short.
Against Wisconsin, the IU guard found redemption.
Langford's layup with 0.7 seconds left lifted the Hoosiers to a 75-73 double-overtime win over the No. 19 Badgers Tuesday night, the last-second shot with the ball in his hands finally going down.
"I mean, just finally I hit one," Langford said. "I know the past two times I had it in my hand at the end of the game, it didn't come out as we planned. I just learned from mistakes in the past two, settling for a jump shot, and I felt like they couldn't stop me getting to the rim. That's exactly what I did, and I made the shot."
With 9.6 seconds remaining in the second overtime, Langford received the inbounds pass and brought the ball up the court. He quickened his pace after getting the ball past midcourt, then got downhill after IU freshman guard Rob Phinisee set a split screen on Wisconsin's Khalil Iverson.
The split screen averted Iverson's attention just enough to give Langford just the right angle to get to the basket and finish with a right-handed layup off the glass.
"Rob did a great job," IU head coach Archie Miller said. "We asked Rob to come up and interfere a little bit and get out. The minute he did that, I thought their guy just flinched just a quick second. And the minute he did it, I knew Romeo's shoulder was going to get by him, just a matter of whether he'd make it or not."
"He definitely made an aggressive play. We talked about it after the Iowa game. Don't settle. Get to the rim. Sometimes that's easier said than done, but he made a great play on the finish."
That scenario is the exact position Miller tried to put Langford in at Iowa last Saturday, only to result in a step-back 3-pointer that was off the mark and sent the game to overtime. Against Purdue, Langford's missed free throw would've given IU the lead.
Tuesday night, the outcome was different.
"The past two times I had it in my hands at the end of the game it didn’t come out as we planned," Langford said. "I just learned from my mistakes."
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