improbable: (adjective), im-prä-buh-bel, 1. not likely to be true or to happen 2. having a probability too low to inspire belief 3. West Valley's 79-75 OT win over San Jose City College on 1/29/2025.

Wednesday night's matchup of Coast-South unbeatens, played out in front of a raucous crowd at Bob Burton Court, exceeded pre-game expectations and offered up a thesaurus-worthy slew of superlatives.

With 1:34 left in the game, the Vikings trailed their cross-town rivals 60-52 and appeared to be dead in the water. West Valley needed to foul to stop the clock and sent SJCC's AB Gilchrist to the charity stripe four straight times. Gilchrist would convert all eight shots. Meanwhile, coach Danny Yoshikawa's Vikings kept chipping away, one possession at a time. Joe Brown hit a bucket to make it 60-54 at 1:28. CJ Willenborg drained a three at 1:10, but WVC still trailed 62-57. It was 64-59 with :57 left after Willenborg countered Gillchrist with a pair of free throws. Robel Zemmo hit two big free throws, but Gilchrist sank two more of his own to give the Jags a 66-61 lead with :39 to go. Things did not look good for West Valley.

Until...

Brown banged in a long trey and was fouled by SJCC's Ron Jones JR. Brown made the free throw and the Jaguar lead was down to a single point at 66-65 with :22 left. Tariq Weiser made one of his two charity attempts to stake SJCC to a 67-65 lead at :21. On the next Viking possession, Caleb Asante sent the game into OT, and the gym into a frenzy, with a short-range jumper with two seconds left. It was all Asante and WVC from there.

Asante scored six of WVC's 12 overtime points, including three aggressive buckets inside the first two minutes of the extra period. His third field goal gave the Vikings a 75-70 advantage with 2:22 remaining. A Willenborg two made it 78-71 at :38 and, after a Davis Crilly three at :32 got SJCC to within 78-74, a Zemmo free throw cemented the win with :27 on the clock. Crilly sank a charity shot at :03 for the final 79-75 tally.

Zemmo paced the scorebook with a game-high 18 points, including three treys. Willenborg contributed 15, while Asante finished with 12. Moulaye Soumare had three huge blocks and was a constant defensive presence. Gilchrist was 15-18 from the stripe and led the Jags with 17 points.

With the win, West Valley (19-3, 6-0 Coast-South) stayed on top of the Coast-South, a game ahead of the Jaguars (17-5, 5-1). The teams meet again Feb. 21 at SJCC in the regular season finale. The Vikings head to Los Altos Friday (1/31) to take on Foothill. The Vikings and the Owls (7-15, 3-3) tip it off at 7:00pm.