For the first time during the men’s NCAA Tournament this year, we have a buzzer-beater to force overtime. It came by way of the absolutely bonkers game in the South Region between the 1-seed, the Houston Cougars, and the 8-seed, the Texas A&M Aggies. It looked like the Cougs were on easy street, even though they were dealing with some pretty serious foul trouble.
And then, over the final 1:17 of the second half, the Aggies made March Madness magic happen. The team went on a 13-3 run that slowly cut into the Houston lead, giving them less and less breathing room as the game reached its conclusion. With seven seconds left and the Cougars up 86-83, A&M had the ball and kept firing, as star guard Wade Taylor IV missed back-to-back heaves from deep. And following a jump ball, the possession arrow kept it on that end of the floor, which led to a Houston timeout to try and set up their defense.
That meant the Aggies got to draw up a play, though, which led to Andersson Garcia doing this.
It is an absolutely ridiculous pass by Tyrece Radford, and Garcia did an incredible job to make sure he could bring the ball up from his ankles and get off a good look. But most importantly, it meant that we got overtime in a game that very much deserved it.
