With a two-week break for the holiday's ahead of them, the Aurora University men's basketball team took on the Concordia University Wisconsin Falcons Saturday afternoon in Mequon, Wisconsin.

The Spartans prevailed thanks to late game heroics from senior guard Brandon Smith. AU was leading by five (74-69) with 42 seconds to play when Concordia guard Ryan Prinsen scored a lay-up and a three-point basket to tie the game at 74-74 with 12 seconds to play. Both of Prinsen's baskets followed AU turnovers.

The Prinsen three set up a last shot possession for the Spartans and Smith. As the game clock wound down, Smith found himself open just behind the three-point arc in front of the Spartan bench and the senior calmly drained the shot and gave AU the lead with 1.8 seconds to play. A Falcon desperation half-court shot missed the mark and the Spartans captured the road NACC win 77-74.

AU opened the game with an 8-4 advantage with 16:21 on the game clock. A lay-up from freshman Denzel Irving at 11:12 in the first had AU down by one at 15-14. Over the next four minutes CUW went on a 19-6 run to take a game-high 14-point lead at 34-20.

CUW maintained a double-digit lead for almost the entire remainder of the half until AU scored the final two baskets of the half, lay-ups from Smith and Nick Kladis to go into halftime down six at 42-36. AU senior Kyle Pilmer led the Spartans in the first-half with 10 points with Irving adding eight.

The second-half saw the Spartans buckle down on defense and continue to shoot well from the field. The Spartans had shot 53.13-percent (17-32) from the field in the first-half to only see their percentage increase with a 58.62-percentage (17-29) in the second-half.

The opening minutes of the half did not look promising for the Spartans though as CUW built an 11-point lead (51-40) with 16:42 to play.

But the veteran and battle tested Spartans answered with a 14-3 run over the next six-plus minutes to tie the game at 54. Five different Spartans scored in the game-changing run.

In the next nine minutes, the teams traded leads nine times and saw the game tied five others leading up to the Spartans taking a lead with 3:56 to play on a Pilmer jumper in the paint. The Spartans continued to make baskets that were countered by Falcon free-throws setting up the dramatic final minute of action.

In the winning effort, Smith led all scorers with 17 points on 6-of-12 shooting from the field including two-of-four from three. Pilmer (14 points and eight rebounds), Kalmon Stokes (13 points) and Irving (10 points) led AU scorers in double figures while Gavin Walker (seven points and six assists), Kladis (five points and five assists), Joe Kwiatkowski (six points) and Sean Gant (five points) rounded out the Spartan scoring on the night.

With the win, AU is now 9-3 overall and 7-1 in the NACC. Next action for the Spartan men's basketball team comes on Saturday, January 3 when they host Lakeland College. Game time is set for 4:15 p.m. in Thornton Gymnasium.