Photo:ESPN
The game up to this point had been one of the most impressive basketball games in the past 10 years. The University of Kentucky and the University of North Carolina exchanged haymakers for 39 minutes and 50 seconds. Every time one team would seemingly seize control of the game the other team would roar back and take the lead. Near the end of regulation, Kentucky had all but closed this one out against the heels.
UK had a 4 point lead with a minute left in the game and they had the ball. All they had to do was run as much off the clock as possible, take a high percentage shot and rebound if it was a miss. They never got the chance, instead they turned the ball over and seconds later the Tar Heels’ Reggie Bullock drained a 3 in the corner to make it a 1 point lead for UK. UNC called a timeout.
When play resumed, Marquis Teague had the ball at the top of the key and knew his team had to score if they wanted to triumph. He took his defender, Marshall, off the bounce and drove to the hoop only to be fouled as he went for a reverse layup. No big deal, all Teague had to do was make both free throws. At that point, the worst case scenario would have been overtime. It didn’t work out that way. Teague missed and North Carolina now had the ball with 22 seconds left and only down a point.
Roy Williams instructed his team to hold the ball for the final shot. UNC’s point guard patiently brought the ball across the half court line and slowly dribbled his way to the top of the key. With 10 seconds to go he delivered an entry pass to the All-ACC Forward Tyler Zeller.
The All-American Anthony Davis was guarding Zeller. As the pass to Zeller was in mid-flight, Davis reached in to try and swipe the ball away as Zeller caught it, but to no avail. Davis then put his hands straight up and tried to just play solid defense without committing the foul. As Zeller turned into the middle of the paint Terrence Jones left his man to help Davis. With 8.8 seconds left Tyler Zeller went up to take a shot but the ball slipped out of his hands and landed in the wide open hands of Jon Henson.
Jon Henson was having a terrific game from the offensive end and had made numerous mid-range jumpers like the one he was about to take throughout the game. Jones was defending Henson, but as I alluded to earlier he left him to double team Zeller. 1.1 seconds had expired from Zeller losing the ball to the point Henson was in shooting form. In those 1.1 seconds Anthony Davis realized Jones wasn’t able to get back to Henson before the shot because he got turned around trying to catch the errant pass. One half of a second later Davis was close enough to get a fingertip on Jon Henson’s fade away jumper.
North Carolina was stunned, but none more than Henson. Here he is a 6’11 full grown man shooting a wide open jump shot and he was…blocked? This, I’m sure is a strange occurrence and the entire Tar Heel team reacted to it as such. Davis then had enough presence of mind to grab the ball from thin air.
With 5 seconds to go Davis had possession of the ball and was preparing to be fouled. Henson, who was just blocked and Zeller geographically were the 2 closest UNC players to Davis after he corralled the ball. Both however started running back to the other end. Then they suddenly realized they needed to foul, albeit a full second later. In fact, the only player that realized they needed to foul Davis was Bullock, but even he was too late. Davis threw a pass to Marquis Teague and Teague ran to half court where he was completely untouched until .4 seconds when Bullock shoved him the back and Teague subsequently dropped the ball and time ran out.
It was truly a joy to watch 2 incredible teams playing at their highest levels, because it rarely happens in the collegiate game anymore. UK vs. UNC December 3[SUP]rd[/SUP] 2011 will go down as one of the all-time greatest basketball games and to top it off, UK won.
