Carrollton, GA - Until less than a second remained in Saturday's NCAA Division II First Round tournament game between the West Georgia Wolves and West Alabama Tigers, Deonta Stocks had scored 1,115 points in his career, but none mattered near as much as the next bucket, as Stocks hit a runner from nearly behind the backboard with 0.2 seconds left in the game to lift the Wolves to an 80-79 victory over the Tigers.

What It Means: West Georgia advances to the second round of the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2002, when UWG won the regional and advance to the Elite Eight. The Wolves will now take on top-seed and top-ranked Florida Southern on Sunday at 7:30 p.m. in Jenkins Field House. The win also give head coach Michael Cooney his 22nd win of the year, tying his most as head coach at UWG with the 2011-12 team that lost in the first round of the tournament. West Georgia moves to 22-8 on the year with the victory.

How It Happened: The Wolves spent much of the game playing from behind, as every time #4-seed West Georgia would get close to 5th-seed UWA, the Tigers would push their advantage back out and keep UWG at bay.

Both teams started sluggish in the game, as only 10 points were scored between the two teams in the opening four minutes of the contest. But West Alabama was the aggressor for the bulk of the first half, taking a 33-18 lead with seven minutes left in the first half. The Wolves then went on a 17-7 run over the final seven minutes of the half, cutting the West Alabama lead to just five at the break, 40-35.

Midway through the period, Deonta Stocks hit a free-throw that gave him his 10th point of the game, giving him 51 straight games with at least 10 points in a contest. He ended the half with 13 points and just behind him was junior forward Jovany Austin with nine.

Coming out of the locker room, Marcus Dortch continued the run with a three-pointer in the first minute, cutting UWA's lead to 40-38, then a minute later Stocks tied the game at 40-40 with 17:56 left on a fastbreak layup. The Wolves took the lead briefly at 42-41, but the Tigers came right back, pushing their early second-half lead to as many as nine at 61-52 with 10:00 left in the game.

But at that point, West Georgia took over the game over the next five minutes, as the Wolves outscored West Alabama 16-2 in that span, taking a 68-63 lead on an Emory Bernard layup with 5:38 left in the contest. But the Tigers came back, retaking the lead on a pair of free-throws from Charles Eaton at 73-72 with 2:30 left in the contest.

In the final two minutes of the game, the Wolves and Tigers were back and forth in a slugfest, as the two teams that met three times with never more than six points separating them at the end of the game took it down to the wire. Alex Abreu gave the Wolves a two-point lead with a free-throw at 78-76 with less than 30 seconds left, then Justin Wright of UWA took it right back with a three-pointer with seven seconds left, giving the Tigers a 79-78 lead.

Head coach Michael Cooney called timeout and the Wolves gave the ball to Stocks on the inbounds play, he took it the length of the court and hit a runner from nearly behind the backboard, with the shot going in with 0.2 seconds left on the clock. Emory Bernard caught the long pass from UWA, ending the game.

Stocks led all scorers with 33 points on the night, as UWG had three players who scored at least 10 in the game. Alex Abreu and Jovany Austin each had 11, while Emory Bernard had nine points and 10 rebounds in the contest.