It came down to a single shot.

With 12 seconds on the clock, the Roadrunners took to the court for a final chance to tie the No. 7 West Texas A&M Lady Buffs. With the score 66-63, it was a three or bust.

Jaelynn Smith received the inbound pass and immediately sought after Jonalynn Wittwer, who drained 6-of-8 from beyond the arc. Wittwer sprinted from the right side of the court to the left for the tying shot, but the Lady Buff defense pressured the ball-handling Smith, who slashed into the paint and launched a desperate, ill-fated mid-range shot.

Nothing, not even net.

“Didn’t have everybody in the right spot, so I’ll take a little responsibility,” said head coach Tanya Haave. “We were looking for Jonalynn in the corner, I think she was open but I haven’t seen the tape yet. We still gave ourselves a chance.”

But that’s just the nature of the beast in basketball. You attack, they react.

“It was supposed to be a corner three for Jony. We faked a screen out to send her to the corner, it didn’t go as planned. That’s fine,” Smith said. “That happens sometimes. People read, people switch. It was just a matter of being a little more efficient with screens and the timing of screens.”

The loss drops the Roadrunners to 0-3 for the first time since 2015, but the comparison ends with the record.

The 2015-16 Roadrunners, who would finish 13-15 on the season, scored under 60 points in each of their opening trio of losses and surrendering an average of 70 points per game.

Meanwhile, this year’s squad has lost to two top 10 teams, has scored 60-plus in their last two contests and on Saturday night, held the Lady Buffs to 17 points below their season average.

After a 73-53 opening night shellacking by No. 10 Lubbock Christian — where the Roadrunners entered halftime up 31-24 — the MSU Denver offense has steadily improved.

Entering the game, MSU Denver had been shooting a respectable 44 percent from the field.

Against the Lady Buffs, the Roadrunners improved upon their two-game average, hitting 46.4 percent of their shots.

The largest leap was made by a bounding Wittwer. The senior was just 5-of-18 from beyond the arc entering the game but rained six threes to in a more efficient outing to ignite a comeback effort.

“I’ve been putting up a lot of extra shots,” Wittwer said. “Catching and shooting in rhythm and not really thinking about it.”

Wittwer finished with 18 points and was the top of three Roadrunners to finish with double digits in scoring. Senior Emily Hartegan had 15 while Smith tallied 14. Beyond the three veterans, however, only three players registered a point, and none more than 6.

The struggles didn’t end there.

Lady Buff center Tyesha Taylor was near-automatic when facing the Roadrunner defense beneath the basket, shooting 11-of-17 from the floor. 26 of the Lady Buff’s 66 points came from layups, including 10 in the third quarter.

The issues were apparent, but the lasting image of the game was an MSU Denver team that might as well have had “Resilient” across their jerseys than “Roadrunners.”

Wittwer was a perfect four-of-four from three in the final quarter, MSU Denver dished out six assists like candy, took six more shots and had four fewer turnovers than their opponent. Had the Roadrunners played the first three quarters like they did the first, the ending could have been different.

“They just said, ‘Okay, we have nothing to lose now,” and started playing to win instead of playing not to lose,” Haave said. “I feel like we grew so much tonight. A little tentative for the big part of the game. You can’t be tentative, you gotta keep going for it.”

Haave knows what the team has to move on going forward — their inside game, aggressiveness and overall attitude, but the sincerity in her tone when talking about the team’s growth was almost a pungent aroma of optimism.

The Roadrunners might be 0-3, but the players’ smiles say that the team is going to be ok.

“We’re just getting started,” Smith said. “It’s still early, and it’s never ideal to lose or start this way, but it’s just the beginning.”