CLINTON – Leading by nine with 5:33 to play, Northwest missed seven of its final nine shots and turned it over three times that allowed Southwest Mississippi to outscore the Rangers 18-7 and steal a 70-68 win in the NJCAA Region 23 Tournament Quarterfinals Monday at A.E. Wood Coliseum. 

The No. 8-seeded Bears got revenge from an 85-69 loss in Senatobia just eight days ago in the conference tournament, upsetting 12th ranked and No. 1-seeded Northwest (22-4) despite trailing for all but 1:35 in the second half.

Southwest (17-8) shot 31 free throws compared to 11 for Northwest (18-4 in first half) and did a bulk of its damage with the Rangers' third-leading scorer, Therrell Gosier II, on the bench for all but eight minutes. The Bears' Roydell Brown shot 11 free throws, as many as Northwest's whole team did for 40 minutes.

Brown and Antonio Cowart Jr. combined to score 22 of the Bears' 35 first-half points and Tremont Robinson scored 18 of his game-high 30 points in the first half as Northwest led 36-35 at the break. 

Jeremy Harrell's jumper and free throw gave Southwest back the lead momentarily before T. Robinson's 3-pointer put the Rangers up 39-38 at the 19:17-mark of the second half.

Northwest did not surrender the lead the ensuing 18-plus minutes and led 61-52 thanks to Jitaurious Gordon's 3-pointer with 5:33 to play.

But the Rangers would foul, that led to a pair of free throws, and then turned it over on back-to-back possessions that led to a 7-0 Bear run to quickly close the gap to 61-59 a minute later.

Southwest rallied to tie the game at 65-all before Gordon hit an off-balance layup seconds later to give Northwest a 68-67 lead with 25 ticks left.

The Bears calmly came back down the floor with time winding down and found a wide-open Robert Boyd in the corner who nailed a 3-pointer, his only points of the half, to give Southwest a 70-68 lead.

What should've been 12.0 seconds left on the game clock was 10.8 seconds after an officials discussion and the Rangers had a shot to tie or take the lead their next trip down.

T. Robinson's layup was too strong, however, and Gosier missed the ensuing tip-in right at the rim as the ball bounced out of bounds and time expired.

Behind T. Robinson's third 30-point outing of the season, Gordon was the only other Ranger in double figures with 10. Miles Washington had seven points and eight rebounds, while Radarius Washington added six points and a career-high 20 boards.

Cowart had 22 points to lead SMCC, followed by Brown with 15 pointsand 14 rebounds and John Knight III with 15 points to lead SMCC.

Southwest only led for 8:32 the whole game in a two-point win.

Northwest will now await one of eight possible NJCAA Tournament At-Large bids to be announced during the NJCAA Selection Show on Monday, March 12 at 11:30 CST on www.njcaatv.com.