The buzz on buzzer-beaters

Sporting News, The, March 1, 1999 by Steve Harrison

Cincinnati's home run vs. Duke all but launched the season. Miami's January miss vs. UConn was quite a midpoint. But those games mean little compared to what will unfold In the coming weeks, when mere seconds may twist a team's postseason fate. With that, here's a look at how to make a last-second miracle.

No matter how many times we see them, buzzer-beaters always are a stunning sight, the athletic equivalent of landing a 747 on a driveway.

After all, how can a point guard 90 feet, dodge five defenders, and score in, say, 4.6 seconds? How can a coach diagram a halfcourt play so shrewdly that a 3-point shooter is all behind the arc?

The Bluegrass State still mourns Christian Laettner's turnaround shot against Kentucky in 1992. Tyus Edney's frantic speed-dribble against Missouri three years later will never be forgotten. Last year's Shot of the Century? Valparaiso's Bryce Drew catching, shooting and scoring on Ole Miss on a play called "Pacer."

Clock-killers are joyous for one team and crippling for the other, but they're far from spontaneous. Remember being, 12 years old, on the playground, counting down the seconds, heaving a 25-footer as an imaginary horn blasted in your mind? It happens every afternoon in college gyms across the country. Like free throws, miracles must be rehearsed.

Take the best play of this college season--Cincinnati's three-quarter-court pass and dunk that slew Duke in the Great Alaska Shootout. With three seconds left and the score tied at 75, Ryan Fletcher threw an inbounds pass to Kenyon Martin, who then tipped the ball to Melvin Levett, who was breaking for the basket. As Levett dribbled once and dunked with two hands, the Blue Devils stood and watched, unaware they were staring at their tragedy.

Earlier in the season, Bearcats coach Bob Huggins held auditions for the carefully scripted play, called "Home Run," Fletcher, a high school quarterback was chosen as the passer. Martin was made the receiver because he's tall (6-8) and one of the team's best jumpers. Levett, a great leaper and finisher, was the closer. The Bearcats then practiced it almost daily. There were no surprises in Anchorage.

"All I told them in the huddle was to execute what we'd already done," Huggins says. "I told Fletcher to make sure the officials moved the photographers back, so if Duke guarded him on the inbounds pass, he could step back and look over him."

Blessed teams have been cheating time all season, but this is the time of year--with conference finishes, postseason bids and simple survival on the line--when it matters most.

In last year's NCAA Tournament, 16 games were decided by three points or less. Six of those were derided by a made basket in the final four seconds. But even though buzzer-beaters are no rarity, defenses have yet to find a good way to stop them. So offenses run the same plays again and again.

"I have seen some different angles, but that's about it," says Miami coach Leonard Hamilton, whose team beat Georgetown, St. John's and UConn with less than 30 seconds to play this year.

Almost every day in practice, Texas A&M coach Melvin Watkins makes his team rum "Victory, a hybrid of Cincinnati s Home Run" and Valparaiso's "Pacer." Watkins sets three seconds on the clock and runs the play without defenders, trying to perfect spacing and timing. He usually runs it at the end of practice, when his men are whipped and their concentration is waning, as in a real game. If they're successful the first time, they go home. That doesn't happen often-nailing a 70-foot pass, a tip and a 3-pointer isn't easy, of course.

On January 23 at Baylor, there was little to suggest anything remotely special would occur: Both-teams were dogs and neither had won a Big 12 game. Trailing 56-54 with 2.5 seconds left, Texas A&M was out of timeouts, but the Aggies were well aware of what to run.

Like Huggins, Watkins already had selected his passer. Joe White, a 6-10 freshman with a good arm and the height to scan the court, would inbound the ball. He lobbed the ball deep to swingman Jerald Brown, who stood at the free-throw line. The Bears, seemingly hypnotized by White's pass, followed the ball, just as the Blue Devils had in Alaska. Brown tipped the ball to a wide-open Chris Clayton, one of three players breaking from the halfcourt line, who hit the 3 for the win.

"Victory" was a simple play. There wasn't one screen, or even one trick. What made it work was practice.

"You have to stick with what you've rehearsed," Watkins says. "If there's three seconds left in the game and you draw up a new play, your player will have an excuse, saying he didn't know what to do."

"In practice we do it without defense most of the time," Clayton said. "But in any game or practice, I've never been that wide open."

Can miracles be Xeroxed? One week later at Oklahoma State, the Aggies again needed to run "Victory" to win. This time Smith's inbounds pass hit the low-hanging scoreboard at Gallagher-Iba Arena and fell to the floor.

Practice also helped New Mexico pull off "Guard Blast" against Arizona on January 16. About once a week the Lobos practice it--always with six seconds on the clock. With 4.6 seconds remaining against the Wildcats, point guard John Robinson took the inbounds pass, sprinted up the floor, then zigged and zagged. When he approached the top of the key, he had the option of shooting but instead dished to forward Damion Walker, who made a layup for the win.