Ball goes up. Ball comes down. Seems simple enough, right?

Not so much when you’re taking one free throw to send the game to overtime and keep your team alive.

Cinderella was in our corner of the tournament bracket, and they had put up a hell of a fight. Despite that, we’d had a fairly comfortable ten-point lead with under four minutes to go, and Coach D had subbed out a few of our starters, figuring that they needed rest and that the backups could use the playing time. Both of which were probably true, and if I’m being honest, it seemed reasonable at the time.

And then [i]California freaking Baptist[/i] decided that would be a fantastic time to go on an 18-4 run. In hindsight, we should have known that they could and would do something like that — they were a team that nobody had expected to be good for another ten years, certainly not to make it to the second weekend of the tournament, but they’d caught fire at the right time, and you don’t win games in March without being able to seize momentum late. Credit where it’s due, they were making plays and catching us off guard.

Win or lose, Coach was going to tear us a new one in the locker room.

We finally scored a basket with about 35 seconds left to get us back within two, but Cal Baptist took their sweet time at the other end of the court and scored as the shot clock was running down. With 5.2 on the clock and us having possession under the far basket, down four, Coach called timeout and brought us in to draw up a play.

Scoring four points on a single possession can be done, but it takes some skill, some luck, and some help from the other team in the form of a foul. You can’t really do anything about the luck, and during the game is a bit late to be working on skill, and the other team doesn’t want to help you… but if you can get them to make a mistake, you’ve got a chance, and I saw something I thought might work.

When the timeout was over, I got the ball from the ref and rolled the inbounds pass to a teammate. The clock didn’t start until he touched it, giving me time to get down the floor. He picked it up and quickly passed it back to me, still outside the three-point line.

CBU had a perimeter defender who was young and aggressive. He’d been guarding me for much of the game. And he hadn’t been paying much attention in their last huddle.

I faked a shot, hoping he’d forgotten not to foul. Then, when I saw him bite, I put it up for real.

I felt him hit my arm.

I heard the buzzer sound as the clock hit zeroes.

I saw the ball go in.

One-point game.

The refs went to the replay monitors to check the timing of the ending, and I saw Young, Dumb and Ugly getting an earful from his coach. Pretty soon, they said the basket counted and the foul had been before the buzzer, so I got one free throw.

One chance to keep the game going and keep our title hopes alive.

Well, I’d done what should have been the hard part. Now just one little free throw. I’d hit hundreds, thousands, in practice, and about ten already today.

No pressure.

I stepped up to the line.

Have you ever had fifteen thousand people screaming at you?

How about knowing that everyone who doesn’t want you to succeed wants you to fail?

It’s torture. Pure and simple. The only thing you can do is ignore it. Pretend you’re back in the gym.

This is not as easy as it sounds.

The ref passed me the ball.

I bounced it a couple of times.

Then, before I could think about it too much, I lined up the shot and let it fly.

It hit the backboard and fell through.

Tie game, we’re going to overtime.



We ended up winning in 2OT and made it to the Final Four. I got drafted in the second round by Sacramento and played pro ball for the better part of a decade, but I never took a more important shot than that one.