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On the second night of a back-to-back, the Austin Toros looked a lot like their parent club for two and a half quarters. But not in a good way.

Austin went down by 24 points in the third quarter against the Fort Wayne Mad Ants and the Toros looked like their legs gave up on them. They failed to close out on shooters and let the Mad Ants hit eight of 16 from the 3-point line in the first half.

The Toros didn’t allow a 3-pointer in the third quarter, but instead allowed the Mad Ant guards to penetrate and dish to plenty of open players. The scoring came almost too easy.

But with 45 seconds left in the third quarter, Toros head coach Quin Snyder made a change. He went small.

Snyder subbed out center Dwayne Jones for forward Eddie Basden, who was acquired in mid-December. The Toros went with a lineup consisting of point guards Curtis Jerrells and Carldell “Squeaky” Johnson, guards Basden and Malik Hairston and forward Justin Bowen. Shooting guard Alonzo Gee eventually subbed in for Basden early in the fourth quarter.

That small lineup went on a 17-6 run to get the Toros back in the game and put pressure on Fort Wayne.

Mid-way through the fourth quarter, Jones returned to the game and went to work. The Toros fed Jones the ball on the low post and he proceeded to dominate the Mad Ants’ Rob Kurz and Sean Sonderleiter, drawing fouls and scoring buckets. Jones finished the game with 20 points and 23 rebounds, on only seven field goal attempts.

With the Toros down two and only six seconds left, Hairston scored inside to the tie the game. Then, Jones stole in-bounds pass and got the ballinside to Basden, who was fouled with 2.5 seconds left. However, Basden missed both free throws and the game went to overtime.

“We spread the floor, got a couple of easy baskets and before you knew it, we was back in the game,” Basden said. “Next thing you know, we was in overtime.”

And the Toros dominated overtime. Austin went on a 17-5 run to start the extra period and put the game out of reach. Hairston scored eight of his 35 points and Jerrells had seven of his 24 in OT.

“It just shows character in our team, that we had that fight in us,” Basden said after the game.

Coach Snyder must have said something to pump up the team going into overtime, right?

“I ain’t gonna say his exact words,” Basden said. “But basically it was ‘let’s go get this game.’”