Imagine that you are a college basketball team. Imagine your opponent just hit a 3-pointer and you are now 1 point behind after leading by 8 points just over a minute ago. Imagine that you now have 0.4 seconds left in the game and need to cross the entire court without automatically advancing the ball, like in the NBA.
Sounds like the last moments of a painful loss.
Such was the predicament of the Portland State men’s basketball team on Saturday, which was on the losing side of Northern Arizona on Saturday. The Vikings seemed to have a game in hand as they went up 86-78 with 1:21 remaining, but then a foul on offense, a loss and three missed free throws in a row opened the doors for the NAU, who seemingly won. victory at the last second. Liam Lloyd 3 points.
The NAU team and the home audience began celebrating the throw as the winner, and the clock actually reached zero on the clock shown on the broadcast, but further viewing brought it back a fraction of a second.
It still looked like a miracle for NAU, since Portland State certainly couldn’t move the ball into the top zone and score it all in four tenths of a second, right?
Right?
You know it’s a big stroke of luck when the announcer’s voice breaks.
With less than half a second left, Portland State forward Isaiah Johnson, guarded by two NAU defensemen, caught a full-court pass from Hunter Woods and redirected the ball for a fraction of a second. A further replay showed that Johnson did not even fully have the ball in his hand before he pushed it towards the basket and landed hard on the same hand before being surrounded by his teammates.
The win saw Portland State 10–16 and 4–9 in tournament play overtake NAU in the Big Sky standings. Johnson finished the game with nine points off the bench at 4-5.
Source: sports.yahoo.com
