ST. LOUIS -- Indiana State was trapped in a nightmare, down 18 points in a Missouri Valley Conference tournament where it was the No. 1 seed. Ten minutes were potentially separating the Sycamores from an ending they never wanted to consider when all those 3s rained in and Robbie Avila became a cult hero and they were ranked and a small-town Indiana dream felt real.

Then Isaiah Swope sent a 3-point shot through the net. And then another one.

All of a sudden, an Enterprise Center crowd that was majority Sycamores blue and white was on its feet, screaming and clapping. Swope kept draining shots and Ryan Conwell and Julian Larry were forcing stops and Jayson Kent was making every play under the basket with ease.

This was one collective last gasp for America's upstart mid-major. A team that won 28 games with the No. 1 effective field goal rate in America and an NBA-style approach packed all of that momentum into one of the craziest comebacks, from down 18 against a 27-win Drake team to up three in a span of just over six minutes.

But four minutes remained, and it was just enough time for another feisty mid-major with elite shot-making prowess to load one more bullet in the chamber. Two-time MVC Player of the Year Tucker DeVries hit a jump shot to break the ice and then set up teammates for dagger makes that the Sycamores couldn't ultimately counter in an 84-80 Drake victory to win the MVC tournament.

"It hurts," Avila said. "Obviously, it's fresh, but for everything the guys put into this, it's painful to not get the outcome we wanted."

A championship was on the line and isn't coming home. That trophy belongs to Drake, which brought its entire starting lineup to the post-game newsconference wearing championship t-shirts, hoisting a wooden trophy on the table and with DeVries wearing one of the nets he just torched around his neck.

But it also hurts because the best of Indiana State for once didn't amount to a victory, and one more victory would have guaranteed a spot in the NCAA tournament. The Sycamores haven't been since 2011, when a star like Conwell was in second grade. It's a journey built for the pesky mid-major, and Indiana State is left confident it is one and praying the selection committee will agree.

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"(We have) 28 wins, regular season champions of the ninth-ranked league in the country," Indiana State coach Josh Schertz said. "We played every one of our Quad 1 games away from home. We only lost three games all year when we were at full strength."

"... March Madness is not one Power-5 upsetting another Power-5. March Madness has always been about the underdogs having a chance to make a run."

A day before, Indiana State's best throttled Northern Iowa 94-72 for a sixth straight victory to mark the program's best season since Larry Bird was the star on a 33-1 team in 1978-79. Afterward, Schertz said his squad "better" make the tournament — win or lose.

He knew losing was possible because of how dialed-in Drake can be. The two teams traded home victories in the regular season, combining for a total score of 156-153. They entered this game with a combined record of 55-11.

But Drake was on a different planet shooting the ball to start the game, when Indiana State came out in a zone with hopes of forcing turnovers to generate its trademark pace for transition 3-pointers. DeVries and Atin Wright were unconscious as the Bulldogs started 7-for-7 from beyond the arc. As the Bulldogs forced the ball out of a red-hot Conwell's hands and Indiana State's deep shots weren't falling, Drake built leads of 12-6, 37-23 and 67-49.

That's when Swope hit those 3s, when Conwell began attacking the rim and when the crowd seemed to squeeze the comfort right out of Drake's shooters' fingertips. Indiana State, which entered at 28-5, began to look like a team that's never quite out of it.

"I think it just shows our fight and our toughness and how together we are," Conwell said. "Despite the ups and downs throughout the game, we never gave up. We kept pushing and staying together."

Ultimately, an Indiana State team that relies almost entirely on its starting five didn't have as many shots to fire back. Though Kent played one of his best games, finishing with 22 points and nine rebounds on 9-of-10 shooting; and though Swope went from zero first-half points to 19 in the second half, Indiana State fell short when Avila, Conwell and Larry combined to shoot 16-of-35. The Sycamores' bench scored one point.

This game wasn't Indiana State's best, but the second-half comeback was. It's a gear that slower or bigger or even deeper teams have a hard time with because of the Golden State Warriors-like runs they can create with pace, volume and a variety of offensive skills.

"That is a really, really good basketball team — an NCAA Tournament basketball team," Drake coach Darian DeVries said. "... Watch them. Find me better teams than them. Anybody that's on that committee that's evaluating Indiana State and you see their record and what they've done all season, the success they've had, the efficiency numbers.

"Everything they've asked them to do, they've done."

Whether the selection committee agrees is now the question hanging like a cloud over Terre Haute. The Sycamores entered ranked No. 29 in the NCAA's NET rankings but are now 1-4 against teams in Quad 1. Indiana State does not have a national brand or a recent track record in the tournament, which makes it a tailor-made storyline if it can get into the field and all the more nervous about whether the NCAA will take that leap of faith.

This season ultimately distilled down to those final 10 minutes, where a group of upstart offensive stars from Terre Haute stumbled into something special and were left believing it was owed to them.

That's heartbreak, and that is March, too.

Contact Nate Atkins at natkins@indystar.com. Follow him on Twitter @NateAtkins_.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Indiana State: Sycamores left to hope they can crack NCAA tournament