The Pioneers (23-4), the tournament's top seed, trailed Mt. St. Joseph (16-11) by as many as 11 points (74-63) with 4:57 remaining. Bain then spearheaded a 16-0 Transy run with four three-pointers over the next three-and-a-half minutes to ignite the crowd and put the Pioneers ahead 80-75 with 1:21 left. The Pioneers, who trailed 38-36 at halftime, also were clutch from the free-throw line finishing 21-for-25 at the charity stripe.
"Tonight was as loud as it has ever been in this building," Transy head coach Brian Lane said. "This is one of the reasons we work so hard to secure the home-court advantage. When you get into these types of situations, you can really feed off the crowd. Marc Bain got hot and we weren't designing plays specifically for him, our guys just did a good job of moving the ball around and finding the open man."
Transy will face Franklin at 7:30 p.m. Saturday in the HCAC Championship game in the Beck Center. The Pioneers' 23 wins are their most victories since the 2000-01 squad finished 27-2 and the 1997-98 team finished 24-9.
After securing a late advantage, the Pioneers turned up the tone defensively, holding MSJ's Kevin Dathard, who finished the game with a team-high 16 points, to just one point in the final five minutes.
"Our defensive intensity was really the key down the stretch," Lane said. "Matt Finke did a great job of denying Dathard and we came up with some big rebounds and some key steals. Bryan Howard had five offensive rebounds and that was just huge."
Bain, who is averaging 20.5 ppg through two HCAC Tournament games, made 7-of-12 three-pointers to tie the league tournament record, while senior forward Bryan Howard added 19 points. Howard made 7-of-9 free-throws and brought down a team-high five rebounds. Center Matt Finke and forward Joey Searle finished with 17 and 16 points, respectively for Transylvania.
Transy's late offensive barrage lifted it past Mt. St. Joseph despite the Lions shooting 53.8 percent (28-of-52) from the floor. The Pioneers connected on 45.5 percent (25-of-55) of their shots from the field. MSJ out-rebounded the Pioneers 34-24.
TU led for much of the first half, but two consecutive field goals by Dathard sent the Lions into the locker room ahead by two. They continued adding to their advantage out of halftime to quickly go up by nine points (53-44) with 14:12 left in the game. Mt. St. Joseph led by as many as 11 points before the Pioneers made their comeback.