Boopie Miller's heave at the buzzer lifted the Mustangs over Virginia Tech on Wednesday night. (SMU athletics)

DALLAS — Virginia Tech missed two free throws and had a costly turnover in the final 30 seconds, which set the table for Boopie Miller’s game-winning half-court heave that gave SMU a 77-76 win at the horn.

“It’s the game. Kid made a great shot,” Hokies head coach Mike Young told Tech Sideline after the loss. “SMU is really, really good. They’re really good. They’re in the top 25 for a reason, they’re that talented. Seen them play a lot. I thought our team outplayed them in a number of areas. We’ve got to rebound a little bit better, but a wonderful, gutsy, tough performance from our team, and we’ve got another one on Saturday that’s every bit as important as this one. We’re going to figure it out. We’ll be fine.”

Tech (13-5, 2-3 ACC) led for all but 30 seconds in the second half and was up by four points with 29 seconds remaining after a ridiculous three from Jaden Schutt with the shot clock winding down.

For the third time in league play, though, the Hokies failed to close out the game on their own terms. Since fending off Virginia in triple overtime on New Year’s Eve, they lost by three at Wake Forest on a clutch three from Nate Calmese, blew a 13-point lead in the final three minutes vs. Stanford and lost by one on Ebuka Okorie’s trey, and just survived Cal as its game-tying triple at the horn missed.

It was no surprise then that Wednesday’s contest in Moody Coliseum came down to the wire, and it was a similar result from Tech. It turned the ball over under its own basket when Amani Hansberry’s inbound pass to Neoklis Avdalas bounced off his hand and out of bounds with 7.4 seconds left, forced by Mustangs (13-4, 2-2) guard B.J. Edwards.

Still, the Hokies led by two after an Edwards layup, and they inbounded to point guard Ben Hammond, who was fouled with 4.7 seconds remaining. He headed to the line as their best free-throw shooter at 84.5 percent on the year (60-for-71), which included a 16-for-18 mark in the UVa victory.

Yet, he missed the front end of a one-and-one. Tobi Lawal got the offensive rebound, though, and was fouled with 3.4 ticks left. Surely, as a 76.9 percent foul shooter (30-for-39), he put the game on ice for Tech, right?

Nope. Lawal also missed the front end of a one-and-one.

“I’ll take Ben Hammond up there anytime,” Young said. “I just told Ben Hammond he’s going to be up there again, a number of times, in critical situations in his career, and he’ll make them. I think he’s over 80 from the line coming in. Tobi Lawal, third game back. He was 4-for-4 against Cal. We’re going to be fine.”

SMU grabbed the board, called timeout and set up a play with 2.6 seconds. Young also called timeout before the inbound to adjust his defense.

However, the Mustangs didn’t go long like Young and his staff predicted, which is what Virginia and Cal did in the waning moments over the last two weeks. They didn’t have the time to run a play in the halfcourt like Wake Forest or Stanford, either.

Instead, they went short and put the ball in Miller’s hands. He got around Hammond with two dribbles near the sideline, just avoiding stepping out of bounds, and jumped off of his left foot as he released the prayer. It cashed — and a well-timed push of the pyrotechnics button capped off SMU’s night.

“I thought they were going to throw the thing [to midcourt] and run Boopie up the floor,” Young said. “When he threw the ball up, you could’ve knocked me over with a feather. I thought we were in great shape. Only up two, can’t foul. Thought Boopie would try to get into his body, he did a little bit, but released it and let it go and got it down.”

“I knew it was going in,” Miller said. “I just felt confident about it. It went up and went in.”

It marked Miller’s third game-winner in two seasons with the Mustangs. He also hit one on Virginia in John Paul Jones Arena last year.

“That was just an incredible shot by Boopie,” SMU head coach Andy Enfield said. “About halfway there, I paused and said, ‘Wow, it might go in.’ And it sure did.”

Similar to the Stanford game, how well Tech played for the majority of the night got buried under the winning bucket. Then again, basketball is a 40-minute game, and fair or not, the Hokies have struggled to close things out, with three last-second losses over the last 11 days by a combined five points.

“The turnover here with Neo, I’ll kick myself, we could’ve handled that better,” Young said. “You’re up four, you’ve got the ball on the endline, you can’t have that turnover. But again, we’ll grow from it, we’ll get better.”

Miller scored 19 of his game-high 24 points in the second half, the majority of which came from the stripe, where he was 11-for-16 — a surprisingly high number of misses given he entered the day shooting 92.5 percent (96-for-106).

In his homecoming, Jailen Bedford paced the Hokies at SMU. (Virginia Tech athletics)

While he carried SMU, Jailen Bedford paced the Hokies. The Austin, Texas, native was fantastic in his homecoming, dropping 22 points, including three 3-pointers, and adding seven rebounds and some key defensive plays.

“He was terrific,” Young said of Bedford. “He played his guts out. He played really, really hard. He was engaged. I thought he was as good defensively as he was offensively. Jailen Bedford was outstanding. I’m really proud of him.”

Four other players scored in double figures for Tech, led by Schutt’s 15 points on 4-for-6 shooting from deep. Hammond had 11 points and five assists, Avdalas added 10 points and six dimes and Lawal posted 10 points and eight rebounds.

It had a scoring drought in the first half for nearly five minutes but responded well, pulling back from down nine to within one at intermission, 39-38.

The Hokies took over and pushed the margin to as big as eight in the second half, too, courtesy of Schutt’s four-point play with 14:24 left. He also hit another triple at the 11:11 mark to put them up 60-52.

However, the Mustangs fought back through Miller. They were just 3-for-15 from long range, and Miller’s lone make on six 3-point attempts was the dagger, but Jaron Pierre Jr. hit a key one to give them some life with 7:22 remaining. Then, after a layup from Samet Yigitoglu, three points from Miller pulled them within one with under a minute to go.

That accounted for five of SMU’s 10 points in the final three minutes — a stretch where Tech scored just three (via Schutt).

How do the Hokies bounce back from this? It feels reminiscent of Charlie Moore’s buzzer-beater for Miami in 2022 in Cassell Coliseum, which dropped them to 2-7 in the league and put them on thin ice. It served as a turning point, and they righted the ship, ultimately finishing conference play 9-2 and winning an ACC Tournament in Brooklyn.

At the moment, this Virginia Tech team doesn’t quite have its back against the wall like that. It has eight Quadrant 1 opportunities remaining, including two next week at Syracuse and No. 20 Louisville, and if it plays like it did for the first 39:30 at SMU, it might stack together some quality wins and steer its postseason résumé in the right direction. It’ll be in serious trouble if it can’t shake the late-game woes, though.

Box Score: SMU 77, Virginia Tech 76