When BYU scored the first eight points of the second overtime, things looked bleak for the Portland Pilots.

Who comes back from a 99-91 deficit with less than than two and a half minutes to play?

The Pilots, that’s who.

With Bobby Sharp and Thomas van der Mars leading the way, the Pilots rallied to defeat the Cougars 114-110 in triple overtime Thursday night in one of the wilder West Coast Conference games ever played at the Chiles Center.

This game never would have gotten to a third overtime if not for Sharp, who scored a season-high 27 points on 8 of 13 shooting from 3-point range, knocking down his final two treys in the final 31 seconds of the second OT to pull Portland even at 103-103.

Then there was Van der Mars, the 6-foot-10 junior center, who scored a career-high 27 points and matched his career-high with 18 rebounds as the Pilots withstood a 48-point outburst by BYU’s Tyler Haws to win for the third time in four games.

Big win, right?

“They’re all big,” Pilots coach Eric Reveno said. “Everyone in this league is so good. This game was a microcosm of the schedule in that … if you take your eye off the next possession, you’re going to be in trouble.

“You’ve got to keep your head down and keep grinding, and save the ‘woulda, coulda, shouldas’ to the end. And if you work hard, you minimize those.”

As Thursday’s game ended, the Portland student section came on the floor and hoisted Sharp off his feet and held him high for all to see. Sharp’s 27 points were nine more than his previous season high against Oregon State and his eight 3-pointers were two shy of the school single-game record held by Jared Stohl.

“Bobby was great,” Reveno said. “You get him some easy looks and all of a sudden he starts making those tough ones. Thank goodness he made them. That was great.”

The only other triple overtime game in Portland history was in the second game of the 1984-85 at San Jose State when the Pilots won 82-81.

Portland’s 114 points also were a school record against a Division I opponent, surpassing the previous mark set in a 112-105 victory over San Francisco in the 1991-92 season.

And, finally, the 48 points by Haws, who made 17 of 34 shots from the field and 10 of 13 free throws, broke the Chiles Center record of 43 set by Portland’s Matt Houle against San Francisco on Feb. 13, 1993.  It also ranked as the 11th highest single-game total in league history.

“It was a great college basketball game,” Reveno said. “You might live a long time and not see a triple overtime game like that.”

The Pilots (12-8, 4-4 WCC) now head into Saturday’s 1 p.m. game against San Diego with one more win than they had all of last season.

And they still have 10 league games left to play before the March 6-11 WCC Tournament in Las Vegas.

“I feel good,” Reveno said of the PIlots’ overall record. “I try not to be a curmudgeon and just focus on the ones we should have won that we didn’t, whether it was Montana State, North Texas, or San Francisco. The guys are giving it their all, so …

“We’re getting better. You look at our stats and people who watch us know we’re a better basketball team. We’re not perfect. We make mistakes. The press break could be better, we could make a few more free throws, but I’ll take a tough, scrappy group that finds a way to win any day.”