The goal was to make sure whatever shot went up was contested, so the plan failed.

The IPFW men’s basketball team took the ball out of bounds on its own baseline with 5.2 seconds left and got a wide-open layup by Mario Hines with 3.4 on the clock Saturday night, lifting the Mastodons past visiting Miami University 57-56 at the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum.

“We were in man-to-man defense and we had a mixup, poor communication — it was a complete breakdown,” RedHawks coach John Cooper said. “Whether it was a wide-open layup or a shot, it doesn’t matter. The execution was poor.”

Michael Kibiloski got the assist on Hines’ layup. The ball nearly rolled off the rim before falling through.

“I just hoped it went in and it did,” a smiling Hines said. “I was pretty happy about it.”

Said Kibiloski, “The original play is for (Frank) Gaines to come off two screens and get the ball in the corner. The second option is Rio slipping, and Rio’s guy really shoved out hard on Gaines. (Hines) was wide open. I just made a good read on it.”

Miami’s biggest problem, according to Cooper, was its multitude of second-half breakdowns and early missed shots.

“How many times in the first half did we miss layups?” the MU coach said. “Those are the things that lose you games. Nobody ever wants to look at that because we were up by 14.”

RedHawks guard Allen Roberts said the visitors weren’t very good defensively after intermission.

“We didn’t follow our scouting report as it was put down,” Roberts said. “Their guards were going to drive left, and we let them drive left. We had mental lapses on defense.

“From the beginning of the second half to the end of the game, those little things just built up. That last possession just topped it off. That was the icing on the cake.”

Miami did limit Gaines, who brought a 20.7 scoring average into the contest, to just 9 points on 3-of-13 shooting. IPFW had six players between 7 and 10 points — Kibiloski buried a trio of 3-pointers during a key stretch in the second half.

MU lost the battle of the boards 32-28, getting five rebounds apiece from Jon Harris and Geovonie McKnight. Quinten Rollins collected 8 points, 4 assists and 3 steals.

An enthusiastic crowd of 3,033 watched the second meeting of the two programs. Miami won 63-52 in December, 2003.

“We’ll get better. We’ll learn from it,” Cooper said. “We’ve got to understand the little things continually. We just can’t let this one affect the next three games.”

The RedHawks’ next three games are on the road: Evansville on Wednesday, Dayton next Saturday and Wright State on Dec. 19.