This High School Buzzer Beater Is The First Great Moment Of March Basketball

It’s championship week for college basketball, as teams start punching tickets for March Madness in conference tournaments over the next few days. But it’s also championship week for many high schools, and New York State’s Section I championships gave us the first great moment of March hoops on Saturday.

The Class A championship game got quite an ending between Ardlsey and Tapan Zee on Saturday afternoon. It was a back-and-forth affair that reporter Kevin Devaney Jr. chronicled on Twitter, and as the game’s final seconds ticked down, it appeared that Tapan Zee would come out with the win.

Down two with 2.4 seconds left on the clock, Ardsley defends a Tapan Zee inbound pass hoping for a turnover. Trying to avoid any chance at an easy shot, the passer goes deep down the court, but to a double-teamed Tapan Zee player.

Julian McGarvey, defending the pass, got the ball inside his own three-point line and tossed up an off-balance shot just before the buzzer that sailed a long, long way. Somehow, it went in.

https://twitter.com/KDJmedia1/status/970071588665282563

The improbability of this shot is almost overwhelming. He’s standing near his own free throw line. McGarvey doesn’t even get his feet set. It didn’t matter; the ball went in and set off a wild Ardsley celebration at Pace University.

McGarvey called the play the “greatest moment” of his life.

It took him a while for the importance of the play to finally hit him.

These moments are always fun, and as someone who’s covered a lot of sectional finals, actually making that big shot at the end of a game is a lot more rare than you’d think.