How Goodpasture basketball reached TSSAA title game after controversial finish

• Clarksville Academy coach called late foul 'criminal'
• Vanderbilt commit Isaiah West hits free throw with .1 second left for win
• Morehead State signee Eddie Ricks III finished with 24 points and 10 rebounds for CA.

COOKEVILLE — Clarksville Academy coach Matt Hoppe had to compose himself before he could talk about the final seconds of his team's TSSAA Division II-A BlueCross Boys Basketball State Championships semifinal game against Goodpasture.

Clarksville Academy was called for a foul with a tenth of a second left and Goodpasture's Isaiah West knocked down a foul shot to seal a controversial 48-47 victory Thursday at Tennessee Tech's Eblen Center. Hoppe was hit with a technical foul as he left the floor as Goodpasture moved into its third straight state title game and fourth in five years.

"Well, I got a technical when the buzzer was over because of how criminal that was," Hoppe said about the foul. "We were the better team, and to have that happen at the end of the game ... again, I was on the other end of the floor so I don't know if that was a foul or not. But in a state semifinal game ... it's just really, really hard."

Goodpasture (31-2) will face Notre Dame (23-9) at 1:30 p.m. Saturday for the state championship.

With the game tied at 47, West drove the length of the floor, got to the basket and passed to forward Jack Carter. Carter's shot under the basket was blocked by Mr. Basketball finalist Eddie Ricks III. Goodpasture's King Keary got the loose ball and found West, who penetrated into the lane before he was doubled by Clarksville Academy's D.J. Merriweather and Jacques Wyatt III. The whistle blew just as West left his feet with 0.1 second left.

"It didn't look like a foul to me," Hoppe said. "But it is what it is. I'd love to see us go into overtime and let the players decide it. If (the foul) was questionable, OK, but let them decide it. And let (Goodpasture) too decide a state semifinal game. For that to come down to that is criminal."

Ricks, a Morehead State signee, led Clarksville Academy (26-9) with 24 points and 10 rebounds and carried the team in the fourth quarter.

West, a Vanderbilt signee, finished with 17 points to lead Goodpasture and will get a chance to play in his second state championship game in three years. He missed last year's title game recovering from a surgically repaired knee. He scored 19 points in the 2021 DII-A championship game, a 60-50 win over CPA.

"There's 32 minutes for a reason," Goodpasture coach Adam Sonn said. "And we maxed out every 31:59.9 of it."

Reach sports writer George Robinson atgrobinson@gannett.com and on Twitter @Cville_Sports.