Mission Prep opens up Christmas Classic with last second win over Windsor

Kyle Colvin didn’t start the game, but he finished it.

Colvin hit a 3-pointer from the coffin corner with four seconds left to lift Mission Prep to a 53-52 win over Windsor in its first game of the Christmas Classic Tournament on Saturday night.

The play began with Mission Prep down 52-50 and trying to inbound the ball with 14 seconds left.

“We couldn’t get it in at first and then Eddie (Fernandez) made a great pass,” Colvin said. “The I got the great screen. That was a team effort. That was a lot of fun.”

“We just really wanted to try and take advantage of the weak side defense,” Mission Prep coach Terrence Harris said. “Kyle lives for that shot. I’m glad he made it this time.”

As the shot splashed through the net and Windsor couldn’t make a half-court shot, the Mission Prep bench cleared and mobbed Colvin.

“They got me so hyped,” Colvin said, “I wouldn’t want to celebrate with anybody else.”

Harris credited another pocket pass by Fernandez to Max Basile on a pick-and-roll on the previous possession for keeping the Royals within striking distance.

“We’ve got a lot of guys that can play,” Harris said, adding that in Mission Prep’s last game, he went with a small lineup. “Any given day there can be a different guy in that starting lineup, but we go with what’s working.”

“Today, we needed a little bit of a longer group, he was leading us in scoring so we stuck with him.”

Colvin first entered the game in the second quarter and sparked the second unit. The 6-foot-5 sophomore guard scored nine points in the second. He started on the bench in the third quarter and didn’t enter the game until there was 3:30 left.

“It’s good because I see how the game starts and what they are running, what works and what doesn’t work,” Colvin said. “I think it’s to my advantage that I’m coming off the bench.”

Colvin finished with a team-high 15 points on three 3-pointers, including a pair of step-backs. Matthew Blaney finished with 14 points for Mission Prep (2-3).

Harris said after losing a couple close games of late, a win means something if his team can take advantage of the momentum.

“Hopefully it lets these guys know that they can win in crunch time and really we just have to keep building off it.”

This story was originally published December 19, 2015 at 9:48 PM with the headline "Mission Prep opens up Christmas Classic with last second win over Windsor."