After 112 days, Kobe Paras and Niigata are back in the win column.
The Albirex snapped their 26-game losing streak in the 2021-22 B.League season on Saturday, escaping Ibaraki, 79-76, at the City Hall Plaza Ao-re Nagaoka.
The last time Niigata experienced a win was back on October 9 — a 77-64 win over San-En at Hamamatsu Arena. Since then, Albirex suffered loss after loss that led to them dropping to the bottom of the league with a 2-27 record.
But Albirex needed to gut this one out.
Leading by as much as eight points, 67-59, in the final frame, Albirex saw their lead dwindle down and eventually face a 76-75 hole after a Chehales Tapscott trey with 37 seconds remaining.
Rosco Allen was able to answer on the other end with a booming trey to give the lead back to Niigata.
Thrilling was the final seconds of the contest.
After a missed jumper by Atsunobu Hirao, Allen split his charities with 6.1 seconds left but Albirex was able to still keep possession. Allen again muffed two more free throws giving the Robots one last shot.
With no timeouts left and just 3.9 seconds remaining, the Robots were not able to attempt a shot as time expired.
Allen led Niigata with 26 points, five rebounds, three assists, a steal, and a block.
Tshilidzi Nephawe, Jeff Ayres, and Yuto Nohmi all got 11 points each as well.
Paras had 10 points in the game, going 2-of-4 and 4-of-4 from the free throw line.
Ibaraki, meanwhile, fell to 6-24 — losing five of their last six games.
Eric Jacobsen paced Ibaraki with 21 points and eight rebounds while Hirao and Kohei Fukuzawa added 16 and 15 points, respectively. Tapscott ended up with 11 points but shot just 3-of-13 from the field.
Javi Gomez de Liano did not play in the game due to an ankle injury.
The two squads face off again tomorrow.
