His best foot forward

WORCESTER -- Germain Mopa Njila put his best foot forward, and then some.

His feet are size 11 1/2, but it was a size 12 sneaker on his left foot that touched the baseline on the would-be game-winning drive with less than four seconds remaining in the Vermont-Syracuse first-round NCAA Tournament game last night at the DCU Center.

If he wore shoes that fit properly, he may have been a hero for Vermont in regulation. Instead, it took overtime for the 13th-seeded Catamounts to topple fourth-seeded Syracuse, 60-57.

The one glitch in an almost perfect night -- Mopa Njila's layup that would have put Vermont ahead, 53-51, was waved off with just 3.7 seconds left -- won't be the only memory for the native of Cameroon.

Mopa Njila scored a career-high 20 points on 9-of-10 shooting (2 for 2 on 3-pointers), with 9 rebounds, 5 assists, and 4 steals in what Vermont coach Tom Brennan described as the biggest win in school history.

"It's unbelievable, a dream come true," Mopa Njila said. "You watch March Madness on television and see all the guys having success and advancing to the Sweet 16 and the Elite Eight -- having fun. You wonder, `Man, when am I going to have that chance?' Tonight was our night.

"If you play college basketball, that is your dream."

Of course, Mopa Njila's childhood dream featured World Cup soccer, not NCAA basketball. But he looked right at home against Syracuse. The senior, who came in averaging only 5.5 points a game and had never scored more than 15, torched the Orange.

The Catamounts needed every point of his contribution. Leading scorers Taylor Coppenrath and T.J. Sorrentine combined to score 33 points, but they needed 36 shots to get them. Martin Klimes (7 points) was the only other Catamount to score.

Subtract Mopa Njila and the Catamounts were just 13 of 49 (26.5 percent) from the field.

"I was just trying to help out," Mopa Njila said. "This is a team effort. Today Taylor wasn't the high-scoring guy he's been all season long, and that's time for other guys to step in. That's what we do.

"Sometimes it's [teammates], today I was lucky to make some shots."

And unlucky that one made shot didn't count.

"This is something every player dreams of, taking the last shot to win the game, and I stepped out of bounds," Mopa Njila said. "When we got into overtime, I said it's time to step up and win this game."

He helped do that by ripping the nets with a 3-pointer that put Vermont ahead for good. Entering the game, Mopa Njila was just 9 for 34 on treys this season.

Makes one think it was meant to be.

"When we packed to come here, some guys were packing for spring break, but I told them, `No, we're going back to Vermont [to practice]," Sorrentine said. "You gotta believe."