This was just an incredible contest. Neither team made many mistakes. Neither team ever had control, and the game sat on a razor's edge throughout.

It was the great plays, not the absence of, that made this game arresting from opening tip to ending buzzer. I thought Western got caught up in the first half trying to match Central shot for shot from the perimeter. But from in the final 25 minutes, both teams stuck with what they did well. The Mules have shooters all over the floor and continued to hit shot after contested shot. Western appeared to be the quicker, more aggressive team and continually got to the rim.

At halftime, I didn't think Central could keep up its 3-point barrage. I was wrong. The Mules finished 12 of 21 behind the arc, and Western still had a shot to win. That, coupled with what was at stake, the subplots and the atmosphere, made for the best MIAA game I've covered.

Western coach Tom Smith said of his Griffons on Monday, "I don't think I've ever had a team play as hard for three games in my career, ever. ... You almost felt we didn't lose. They just found a way."

You have to give Central a lot of credit. The Mules had to make two defensive stops at the buzzer to win the tournament, and Alex Moosmann's block on Southern's Mariun Price and Esian Henderson's closeout on Western's Quentin Noblin got the job done.

While an almost NBA-range 3 over the tallest defender on the floor wasn't ideally what Western wanted for the final shot in overtime, the Griffons did want a 3 to win off dribble penetration with about 5 seconds to go so they had a shot at the rebound. Noblin's shot fit that criteria. Central played some great half-court defense in the final minutes of this game, and the last possession was no exception.

That being said, the Mules couldn't guard Western man-to-man. The Griffons' spread offense and ensuing dribble penetration forced Central into a very rare zone. Smith said Monday, "If there are any moral victories, we toed them up man-to-man the whole way."

It just came down to the more seasoned and talented team finding a way to survive. A few more thoughts to close.

--- Central guard Joe Young is the most flamboyant player in the league, hands down. If you happen to be looking down when he sinks a 3, it's not hard to figure out who hit the shot when you look up. Consider me among those greatly entertained by his antics. Consider the Griffons among those not amused. When I asked them to comment on Young's big shots down the stretch in this game, Lonnel Johnson said, "No comment." Coach Tom Smith added, "No comment on Joe Young, None." Ironically, when it was Young's turn to step to the podium, he admitted he was speechless. Coach Kim Anderson chimed in, "That's a first."

--- Central forward Sanijay Watts played 36 minutes, which was surprising considering how his left knee injury looked the night before. But he wasn't the dominating force inside that I saw in the Mules' two previous wins over Western. His shot was a bit off, and he didn't look to have the same leaping ability. The nice thing about being Central Missouri is the Mules have guys like Tremaine Luellen, who can fill that role, get those offensive rebounds and shoot over the Griffons forwards. Luellen said afterward of his 24-point performance, "This is the biggest game I've ever played in, so I had to play well."

--- Josiah Miller's one-handed dunk over Western's Quentin Noblin was the slam of the year, no doubt. But it's funny that by the time Marcus Rhodes threw a falling down, no-look pass over his head to James Bush for a Western layup 5 minutes later, bringing the Griffons within 68-57 with 4:27 left in regulation, all the momentum from Miller's dunk was gone. Many of the questions during postgame were about that slam, but I thought there were so many pivotal plays, that dunk was noteworthy for its spectacle, not its game-changing ability because Western, like all game, came right back.

--- I have to give credit to Anderson and the Mules for switching to a zone. With 12 minutes to go, Moosmann, De'Andre Bryd and Luellen all had three fouls. But playing a smart zone, that trio managed to last the duration of regulation and overtime. "Our guys were pretty smart once they got to three or four fouls," Anderson said. "But before that, they were kind of dumb."

--- For those of you who thought the Mules would fade during a third straight overtime, Bryd had this to say, "I don't think we were fatigued. We run a lot ... in practice."

--- And finally, for some reason, the MIAA only lists one attendance for both championship games 2,019 for Sunday. That doesn't make sense since it's two separate groups of fans, and in this case, I thought the men's game had a bigger following than the women's. I'm not saying 2,019 is inaccurate, but it sure did feel like more people. The atmosphere mirrored the quality on the floor.