They kept going and going and going ....

When I attended Southern Vermont College from 1996-2000, I often went to the men’s basketball games in the field house. I had a number of friends on the team, and considering the campus was in the middle-of-nowhere Vermont, it was something to do.

The field house isn’t very big. The Ryan Center it is not. It holds maybe 300 fans. The team was fairly decent in my day, but never in my time there did I see anything like what happened on Tuesday night.

The Mountaineers and Skidmore College played seven overtimes before the visiting Thoroughbreds — what a perfect nickname for this game — prevailed 128-123 in seven overtimes. Yes. Seven. Overtimes.

Southern Vermont’s Lance Spratling, who I covered while he played at Taconic High School in Pittsfield, Mass. — played all 75 minutes and scored 31 points on 10-for-40 shooting, including 0-for-13 from behind the 3-point line.

According to the box score, 142 fans attended the early season game. The teams combined for 145 missed shots. They were tied at 59-59 at the end of regulation, and scored a combined 133 from that point forward.

Want some more numbers?

SVC won the rebounding battle 87-79, and outshot the Thoroughbreds 37.2 percent (42-for-113) to 36.8 percent (43-for-117). Of the Mountaineers’ 123 points, only 14 came from bench players. Taeshon Johnson of SVC led all scorers with 39 points.

Two other games in college basketball history went to seven overtime periods, but this is the first in Division III.

“I kept telling the guys as each overtime passed to really enjoy the moment,” Skidmore coach Joe Burke told reporters. “They will never be involved in anything like that in their lives again. I kept telling them, ‘This is fun isn’t it?’ But by the sixth overtime, I think that wore out.”

And how does it feel to lose a game like that?

“It’s difficult to reconcile your emotions when you have just participated in such an epic event and lost,” SVC coach Mike McDonough told reporters. “But to a man, both teams will take a way something from tonight that they will never forget.”

Both teams have a week before they get back on the court, and it looks like they’ll need it.