DE PERE - St. Norbert College senior Michael Payant's baseline floater with 2.8 seconds left lifted the Green Knights to a 59-57 win over UW-Eau Claire in a physical non-conference contest at Mulva Family Fitness & Sports Center.

The game's final minute saw St. Norbert (6-3) scoring on its last two possessions to wrest victory away from the Blugolds. Kyle Krueger's finish at the rim with 33 seconds left put the Green Knights ahead 57-55. Eau Claire (7-4) answered when Alex Voigt's shot from the paint was true with 17 seconds left, and had an opportunity for a conventional three-point play. Voigt's free throw hit the back iron of the rim and bounded high in the air twice before finally caroming to Payant. Following a timeout, Payant had a floating shot from the baseline get a friendly bounce into the goal with 2.8 seconds left. The two teams then exchanged timeouts, and Spencer Page's 3-pointer from about 25 feet hit the back iron and bounced away as time expired.

The thrilling denouement was the climax of a physical game on both ends of the floor. Eau Claire jumped out to leads of 11-4 and took its biggest lead at 14-6 with 12:53 left in in the first half. The Green Knights would go on a 12-4 run over the next 7:37 to tie the game at 18-18. St. Norbert would again tie the game at 21-21 with 3:44 left in the half on a Jamison Nickolai 3-pointer. A pair of Nickolai free throws with 27 seconds left in the half brought the Green Knights to within 25-23 at intermission.

Eau Claire opened up three leads of eight points early in the second half, the last at 39-31 with 13:17 remaining. A quick 5-0 run by St. Norbert on a Garrett Grzesk 3-pointer and Payant layup got St. Norbert to within 39-36 with 11:43 left. The Green Knights tied the game at 41-41 with 9:25 to go but found themselves trailing 50-45 with 6:14 left. An Evan Glaser basket got the Green Knights to within one possession and Carter Gebler's conventional three-point play was converted with 4:06 left to tie the game 50-50. The 9-0 St. Norbert run continued, with the Green Knights taking their first lead on a Payant hoop with 3:34 left. St. Norbert split four free throws to take a 54-50 lead with 2:45 left, but the Blugolds came again to take a 55-54 lead with 1:34 left on a three-point play by Cade Hall. Krueger made one of two free throws with 1:22 to go to retie the game at 55-55 and set up the game's final thrilling minute of action.

St. Norbert shot 37.7 percent from the floor, making 20 of 53 field-goal attempts - but did shoot 48 percent (12-for-25) from the field in the second half. Nickolai had team-highs with 13 points and eight rebounds. Grzesk had 11 points, while Payant and Krueger had 10 points apiece. The Green Knights outrebounded Eau Claire 37-33.

Eau Claire shot 40 percent from the floor, canning 20 of 50 field-goal attempts. Hall topped the Blugolds with nine points. The Blugolds entered the game averaging 77.2 points per game.