To the victor Saturday went bragging rights, at least until Nixa and Ozark meet again next month. To the hero, Luke Roemen, went $12.

Roemen swished two free throws with :00.1 showing on the scoreboard to deliver the Eagles a 53-51 triumph over the Tigers in the third-place game at the Nixa Invitational Tournament.

As Roemen walked off the court, his younger brother Marcus, approached him, motioned for him to hold out his hands and awarded Luke rolled up bills totaling $12 for his clutch shooting.

"It was money our Mom gave him for concessions," Luke said of Marcus, a freshman. "He does things like that a lot. I might spend it on him."

Roemen also received a gift of sorts by being left open under Nixa's basket after teammate Brandon Gordon tried to break the teams' 51-51 tie with a running jumper with :03 to go. As Roemen grabbed the rebound and tried to score on a putback, he was fouled on his right wrist just before the final buzzer.

"Everybody thought it was going to be a pass to me, so when Brandon shot, it opened me up to get the rebound," said Roemen, who added Gordon did the right thing by not waiting until the final second to shoot. "That way there's the opportunity for a second shot."

"I've always preached you've got to get the shot off with about :03 left because it's the second shot that normally gets you (the 'W')," Nixa coach Jay Osborne said. "It was a good call on the foul. Luke got hammered on his shot and it happened before the buzzer. The red light (also signaling the end of a game) on the backboard helps."

As Roemen stood at the foul line during a slight delay, he heard plenty of chatter around him. 

"I was listening to the refs discuss whether I got fouled and was I thinking, 'You better say I did get fouled,'" Roemen said. "(Ozark's) players were talking to me, trying to psyche me out. They were trying to get in my head. I was thinking, 'That's just pumping me up even more to make these.' I knew I had both of them."

Perhaps the most pleasant surprise for Nixa this season has been Roemen's dramatic improvement shooting free throws. He was 7-for-7 at the foul line in the fourth quarter Saturday and has made 29-of-31 free throws over the Eagles' last five games.

"After my junior year during the summer, I started working on free throws and getting good at them," said Roemen, who estimates he was somewhere between a 50- to 60-percent free-throw shooter last season. "I was looking at stats and seeing all the points I was missing out on based on missed free throws. I knew I could have so many more points if I could just make more free throws."

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