Game story lede ... check tomorrow’s News & Advance for the full story:

BY CHRIS LANG

(434) 385-5529

Liberty’s Kyle Ohman gave the missed free throw little thought. There was nothing he could do to get it back. He clanked the front end of a one-and-one, allowing Gardner-Webb to pull within one possession Tuesday night and make an almost inconceivable comeback possible.

So no, when Ohman stepped to the free-throw line 17 seconds later, he wasn’t thinking about previous failure. Instead, he just visualized the ball going through the basket. He shot the front end of the next one-and-one. Swish. And just like that, a crisis was averted.

Liberty had wasted 21 points of a 24-point first-half lead, but clutch free-throw shooting in the final minute and a half helped the Flames beat Gardner-Webb 88-77 and advance to Thursday’s Big South tournament semifinals. Third-seeded Liberty (22-10) will get another crack at two seed VMI (23-7), which beat Coastal Carolina Tuesday to advance. Each team won on the other’s home floor this season. The rubber match will start at 6 p.m. at Radford’s Dedmon Center.

“We should have no problem getting up for that game,” said Liberty’s Seth Curry, who led all scorers with 30 points. VMI beat the Flames in Lynchburg last week by 37 points, Liberty’s worst home loss in 18 years.

Some quick-hit notes:

* Liberty is one win shy of tying the 1996-97 team’s school record of 23 victories.

* Kyle Ohman’s impressive line Tuesday—18 points, nine rebounds, three assists, one steal, one turnover. Ohman even spent some time running the point in the second half, which surprised me.

* Brolin Floyd continues to lose minutes. He only played 13 minutes Tuesday and had two points and three rebounds. He’s out of position too much defensively, and that doesn’t sit well with a coaching staff once you get into the single elimination portion of the year.

* Tyler Baker has hit 20 straight free throws, going back to the Feb. 7 home game against Winthrop. He tied a career high with 14 points.

* Austin Smith had four points in six minutes, but foul trouble continues to be a problem.

* Ohman jammed his left thumb in the second half, but he said afterward he was fine.

Some extra quotes from the postgame presser:

Liberty coach Ritchie McKay

“I thought our guys did a great job at the start of the game. I thought we had a tremendous start offensively. I thought we played very unselfishly. Gardner-Webb is a really, really good team, so we had a ton of respect going in. I think the early success gave us a little bit of confidence.“

“Our focus in clearly on VMI. We kind of got away from them at their place and they really took it to us at our place. We’ll have a neutral floor. I know our guys will be a little better prepared. That’s my responsibility. We’ll see how we go against them.“‘

“I think we’re excited. We won 22 games. Remember, we beat VMI before. So we don’t lack for confidence. We just need to do a better job executing. They guarded our three top scorers—Anthony, Kyle and Seth—man-to-man. Basically, they thought the other guys couldn’t beat us. We’ll have a little different scheme as we approach the game Thursday. VMI’s had a great season and they’re a very, very good basketball team. That’s what you expect this late in the year.“

“Actually, I just wanted Jesse (Sanders) to play, to get familiar with playing on it again, going full speed and defending full speed. Hopefully, he’ll be a little better Thursday.“

“I wasn’t going to play him more than 15 minutes even if he was reverse dunking, because he hasn’t played in 10, 14 days. We felt he needed a little more time. He’ll play a little more against VMI, that’s what I expect. The kid wants to play all 40 minutes. It’s not an issue of if he wants to play. It’s easing him back into the rotation.“

“Jesse’s got a little Gumby in him. He bends but doesn’t break. He’ll be fine. We’ll see Thursday. Hopefully we’ll get some more minutes for him.“

Liberty guard Kyle Ohman

Could you feel the lead slipping away?
“I don’t think we panicked. We missed a few defensive assignments and we missed a couple open 3s. Anthony missed one and I missed at least three that went in and out. I still had confidence the whole game that we were going to get the stops we needed to pull the game out.“

Liberty guard Seth Curry

On seeing VMI again ...
“Very excited. After somebody beats you on your home court, that’s what you want, another chance to get back at them. We’ll definitely be prepared.“

“Personally, I was never comfortable (with the 20-point second-half lead.) I was always alert. I knew they could shoot the ball and make a few 3s and get their confidence up again. They can score points real quick. When they came back, I just tried to stay composed and keep my teammates composed. Tried to get some key stops and just make some easy plays on offense.“

“We were just really focused coming into the game. We knew our scouting report. We knew what we had to do to win the game. We applied that early on. We definitely made some shots, and on the defensive end, we executed our gameplan and didn’t give them open looks.“

Gardner-Webb guard Jonathan Moore

“Liberty was hitting everything. We kind of started off nervous. The playoff game kind of made us all nervous.“

Second-half comeback
“We went to a 2-3, and we started trapping out of that. That kind of helped us speed the game up and play more of our style. That created turnovers and allowed us to get quick buckets.“

Gardner-Webb coach Rick Scruggs

“You’ve got to give Liberty a lot of credit. They jumped on top of us early. We dug a hole we just couldn’t claw out of. I thought our kids really fought back in the second half and did a good job of getting it to a one-possession game. Then they hit all their free throws and it continued to spread it wide open a bit. We had our chances the second half to come back and we didn’t take advantage of it. But when you get 20 down, you use all your energy coming back. We got it to the hump tonight, but we couldn’t get it over the hump.“

“I thought Liberty played exceptionally well. I thought the way we played poorly in the first half, Liberty had a lot to do with it. I think they’ll give people a lot of trouble in the tournament.“

How did Liberty take Linn out of the game?
“People started doing this late in the year. They put a bigger guy on him a lot of times. Smaller guards, he takes advantage of really well. He can shoot over them because he’s 6-4. People started putting bigger guards on him so he couldn’t just back them down and shoot over them. That bothers him. A lot of times they had a bigger guy on him tonight, and it bothered him some.“