The Northern Oklahoma College Mavericks rallied from 23 points in the second half to upend Eastern 80-76 in overtime Thursday night at Foster-Piper Fieldhouse.
NOC (18-8) improved to 9-3 in conference play while Eastern (18-7) dropped to 6-7 in league play.
Thursday's win was the Mavs 6th straight.
The Mavs were dead in the water trailing 48-25 early in the second half. But the Mavs went on a 14-0 run to cut the lead to 48-39.
The Mavs took their first lead at 69-67 on a Mike Downing tip in with :37 left but the Mountaineers tied the score late sending the game to overtime.
Eastern jumped out to a 72-69 lead in overtime but the Mavs then outscored the Mountaineers 11-4 the rest of the way. Omar Boone and Keiodre Perry each hit two free throws in the game's final :08 to seal the win.
Four Mavs were in double figures, Keiodre Perry had 16 while Deon Berrien added 15, Khobe Austin-Johnson 12, and Omar Boone 11.
Berrien had 19 rebounds while Downing added 11. Austin-Johnson had five assists and four steals.
"What a great game to part of," said Mavs coach Donnie Jackson. "That is the beauty of basketball, you get two halves to play. The first half was about as bad as we could have played. We made some adjustments to play smaller and faster at halftime."
"That generated some easy steals and baskets and once we got a few easy baskets, our defense really started to ratchet down and get stops," Jackson added. "We wanted to get the score under 10 with 10 minutes to go but did that within a few minutes and then it seemed like a slugfest."
NOC travels to Murray State on Monday.
"The win keeps us in the conference race," he said. "Connors beat NEO so we are one game out of first. Redlands is an important game for us, they won at Enid and they always play better at home. We need to have a business trip mind set to get a conference win on the road."
Mavs 80, Eastern 76 (OT)
1 2 OT—Total
Eastern 46 23 7-- 76
Mavs 25 44 11— 80
Eastern – E. Hobbs 21, J. Pratt 21, G. Lennox 12, M. Turay 10, K. Bird 8, D. Adams 2, D. Mosley 2.
Mavs – K. Perry 16, D. Berrien 15, K. Austin-Johnson 12, O. Boone 11, D. Bankston 8, M. Downing 7, B. Tanner 5, M. Lee 4, E. Stone 2.