NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Zach Ingles had no qualms on taking the last shot - a shot that at least for the moment will be talked about by Eastern Kentucky University basketball fans for sometime.

Ingles, a 6-2 junior, jumped up from 23 feet with the shot clock expiring and drilled the three-pointer that gave Eastern a 50-46 lead with 19 seconds left and for all intents and purposes sent the Colonels to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 26 years.

Two Maurice Hampton free throws with 51 seconds left had brought the Austin Peay Govs, the No. 5 seed in the tourney, to within a point.

Twenty-nine seconds later, Ingles hit the biggest shot of his short Eastern career.

"I don't know how far out it was," said a jubilant Ingles in the media interview room following the game. "The only thing that matters is that it sent us to the NCAA's."

Eastern got two free throws from junior guard Jason McLeish with 10 seconds left to close the scoring on the Colonels' 52-46 decision over the Govs.

From the start, the tone was set for this 42nd OVC championship to be a titanic defensive struggle. That fact was never more evident after 20 minutes of gruelling man-to-man defense later when Eastern led by seven points at the break, 22-15.

EKU quickly upped that lead to 13 at 32-19 at the 15:29 mark of the second stanza before the Govs started their rally. However, APSU scored the next eight points to hop right back in it at 32-27 with 14:05 left to play.

Austin Peay cut it to one at 43-42 before Ingles hit two free throws to lengthen the margin back to three at 45-42 with 4:04 left. A Matt Witt layup on a run-out made it 47-42 with 3:00 minutes to go.

The Govs, who finished 13-19 overall this season, got a jumper from junior center Zac Schlader at 1:42 and two free throws by junior Maurice "Squeaky" Hampton with 51 seconds left, setting up Ingles' heroics.

"Just because you're playing in a championship game, that doesn't entitle you to anything," said fifth-year Eastern head coach Travis Ford, who has directed his team to a school-record 22 wins in 30 contests this year.

"You've got to go out and play hard every night. The pressure never got to this team all year. We won in front of 13,000 people at Dayton, one of the best college basketball atmospheres in America, in our opener and led the whole way by double figures.

"I knew from that point on, we were going to have a special season. We played at Louisville, Western Kentucky and Florida in front of huge crowds on purpose. I wanted them to get ready for our conference race, especially since we opened up with four straight league games on the road.

"Our goal in the last three weeks was to be playing well coming into the tournament. We started doing that our last four games and continued through this tournament.

Ingles led Eastern with 15 points, while senior forward Michael Haney, the tourney's Most Valuable Player, had his 10th double-double of the season with 12 points and 13 rebounds as EKU's winning streak advanced to seven in a row for the season.

Ingles also was credited with a huge play when he rebounded an Anthony Davis miss and then found teammate Matt Witt all alone on the other end of the court for an uncontested layup that moved the lead to five points with just three minutes to play.

EKU hit 40 percent from the field and just 29.4 percent from three-point land.

Austin Peay was paced by Schlader with 14 points and nine rebounds. The Govs outrebounded the Colonels, 35-32, but hit just 1-7 from three-point land (14.3 percent) and only 32.6 percent from the field, which included a dismal 17.4 percent from the field in the first 20 minutes of play.

"We did not want to give up threes. That was one of our key points of emphasis going into the game and it worked out for us tonight," said Ford.

Joining Ingles and Haney on the O'Reilly OVC All-Tournament team were Hampton and Schlader of Austin Peay and Tennessee Tech's Willie Jenkins.

Eastern will advance into the field of 64 teams of the 2005 NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1979 as the Colonels collected their fourth OVC men's basketball tournament championship and the school's sixth men's basketball title overall with the victory.

Eastern will find out who it plays on Selection Sunday (Mar. 13), the CBS-TV-aired show which will begin at 6:00 p.m. EST.