Senior Giovanni Rubino closed his career with a performance for the ages to lead the Muhlenberg men's basketball team to an 82-81 win at McDaniel.

Rubino scored 43 points, one short of the 54-year-old school record, and made the game-winning basket with a half-second left.

Rubino, whose previous career high was 35 points, was 16-of-23 from the field, including 7-of-9 from three-point range. The 16 made field goals were two short of the school record set in 1968, and the seven threes missed the school mark by just one.

Rubino also was 4-for-4 from the foul line to end his career as the Mules' all-time leader in free-throw percentage (.881). He shot .904 from the line this season, making his final 40 attempts, to break his own school record.

The Mules (11-14, 4-9) needed all of Rubino's heroics to pull out a tight game in which they barely led. The Green Terror (13-12, 3-10) had an edge of as many as nine points in the first half. Muhlenberg closed to within a point by halftime, setting the stage for a tense second half in which neither team led by more than six points.

McDaniel was up by six, 66-60, with 6:50 to play, but a jumper by Rubino and a three from the corner by sophomore Elias Sherman-Murphy quickly brought the Mules back to within a point. The rest of the game featured four ties and six lead changes.

The Green Terror took a one-point lead into the final minute before Rubino made a pair of free throws with 58.9 ticks on the clock to put Muhlenberg ahead by a point.

McDaniel drained a tough three from the top of the key with 40.2 seconds showing to go ahead 80-78, and Rubino connected on a short jumper to tie it at 80-all with 22.7 seconds on the clock.

The Green Terror drew a foul on the next possession and made the second of two free throws with 9.2 seconds to go. That was just enough time for Rubino to dribble the length of the court and flip in a layup as the buzzer sounded.

The referees reviewed the video and put 0.5 back on the clock, but sophomore Peter Stanton-Shepherd tipped the inbounds pass, and the time officially expired.

The win was the third straight for the Mules to end the season, and it was their first one-point win in a Centennial Conference road game in five years.

Rubino is only the fourth player in Centennial history, and the first not from Ursinus, to score as many as 43 points in a game. No CC player had reached that mark since 2004, and no Muhlenberg player had scored 40 points in a regulation game since 1971.

Rubino's performance overshadowed, well, everything, but particularly a career-best game from Arinze Achufusi (pictured above), who scored 15 points in the final game of his first season.

Senior Luke Gordos, also playing in his final game, scored 4 points and pulled down a team-high 7 rebounds.