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The shot sailed out of Christian Laettner’s hands, through the hoop and straight into the annals of college basketball lore.
Greatest game-winning basket ever in NCAA Tournament history?
For Kentucky, it was the greatest heartbreak imaginable.
That’s what people, except maybe for fans who put all their faith in fallen heroes, seem to forget about these heart-stopping, once-in-a lifetime moments that can make even an unheralded Notre Dame kid like Rex Pflueger instantly memorable.
For every Bronson Koenig of Wisconsin beating the buzzer and Xavier on a fall-away shot with a hand in his face, there’s a hand that didn’t quite get up fast enough and a group like the miffed Muskateers falling to the floor in agonizing disbelief.
It’s enough to make even the most hardened hearts open with sympathetic relief.
“You hate to see someone lose like that,” said Paul Guffrovich, a former Nanticoke Area High School basketball star who went to the NCAA Tournament as a freshman with Wichita State in 1989. “And you especially hate to see a player make a mistake he wouldn’t make any other time.”
Like the Northern Iowa kids who kept trying to bounce the ball off Texas A&M players and wound up bouncing it right into their hands for easy points as a sure second-round victory bounded away.
It’s called pressure, and creates the kind of captivating moments that can consume players in the aura of March Madness.
Or just leave them mad.
Who would have thought Michigan State wouldn’t make it out of this year’s first round, or Kentucky wouldn’t survive the second, while No. 11 seed Gonzaga and No. 10 Syracuse would battle each other in the Sweet 16?
Syracuse needed Tyler Lydon’s block to sew up a spot in the Elite Eight, but it was Josh Perkins of Gonzaga who left heartbroken trying to make that shot for the lead.
“In college basketball, every game is big,” Guffrovich said. “Pretty much a packed house wherever you play at. When you get to the tournament, take that up about 10 decibels. You can get caught up in the atmosphere really easy. If you don’t come to play every night, there’s a chance you’re going to get beat. That’s why you get all the upsets.”
You also get dramatic finishes, like Laettner taking a long inbounds pass and hitting a turn-around prayer that sent Duke to the Final Four in the most famous Philadelphia NCAA Regional in 1992.
The image of a gleeful Laettner running around the old Spectrum with his arms extended wide and a look of shocked excitement lighting his face became the permanent poster of NCAA Tournament magic.
But it wouldn’t have happened without Jamal Mashburn and his underdog Kentucky team taking mighty Duke to the very brink of a major upset before falling 103-102 on one final, unthinkable shot.
In the same city, Notre Dame created its own fantastic Philadelphia finish by scoring the final eight points Friday to leave Wisconsin wiping away tears from a season that reached the verge of glory, but was gutted in an instant.
That ending came one game after Notre Dame’s Pflueger, whose first points were the game’s last points — scored on a tip-in with 1.5 seconds to play that sent the Fighting Irish into this weekend.
Notre Dame coach Mike Brey called that ending unbelievable.
But you better believe Notre Dame’s 76-75 victory over upstart Stephen F. Austin wouldn’t have felt so fulfilling if not for the gallant effort by the underdog Lumnberjacks and their own Mr. Clutch, Thomas Walkup.
Those victims of fantastic finishes don’t get the glory that comes with moving on in the tournament, but they should get an assist for making these games great.
Before suffering its own emotional agony, Wisconsin gave some to Xavier when Koenig hit his second 3-pointer of the final 12 seconds for a 66-63 upset victory over the No. 2 seed Muskateers. Yet, Xavier made its own mark, and made for a battle so fierce that all eyes were watching to the end.
It was difficult for any college basketball fan to turn away frm Texas A&M’s unimaginable comeback, erasing a 10-point deficit in the final 30 seconds to rally for a 92-88 double-overtime victory over Northern Iowa. But that memory was made only after the Panthers, an 11th seed up against N. 3 A&M, pushed themselves into a 69-59 lead and were about 29 seconds away from prowling around the Sweet 16.
For that matter, where would Villanova’s 1985 national championship team be without Patrick Ewing and his almost-invincible Georgetown Hoyas?
At the end of these epic thrillers, one team feels like it reached the world, while the other team collapses as if it college basketball world just ended.
But it takes two to tango.
Maybe that’s why they call it “The Big Dance.”