EXTRA CHEESE: Watch as Chris Chiozza sends Florida to Elite Eight with epic OT buzzer-beater

By Adam Silverstein
March 25, 2017
EXTRA CHEESE: Watch as Chris Chiozza sends Florida to Elite Eight with epic OT buzzer-beater
Basketball

Image Credit: Associated Press

The game was over. Star big man Nigel Hayes hit two free throws with four seconds remaining in overtime to put the eight-seed Wisconsin Badgers up two on the four-seed Florida Gators in the Sweet 16 of the 2017 NCAA Tournament.

And then Chris Chiozza happened.

With no timeouts and the entire game on the line, Chiozza took the inbounds pass and drove all the way to a couple inches in front of Wisconsin’s three-point line, hoisted up an off-balance floater from beyond the arc and drained it to send the Gators into the Elite Eight just minutes before 1 a.m. ET.

The junior point guard’s game-winning three came just seconds after he hit a layup to tie the game prior to Hayes’ free throws. That was made possible by an incredible chase down block by graduate transfer G Canyon Barry, who wiped a potential two-score game off the board with an incredible hustle play.

Barry was a late substitution in the game by head coach Mike White, who chose to pull senior PG Kasey Hill after a couple poor plays and missed free throws.

The end result is Florida improving to 9-1 all-time in Sweet 16 games and advancing to the Elite Eight out of the round for the eighth straight time. White, who had never coached in the NCAA Tournament before this year, improves to 3-0 and now has both a one-point overtime win and 26-point blowout under his belt.

UF will face seven-seed South Carolina on Sunday at 2:20 p.m. ET. The Gators and Gamecocks split the regular-season series with each team winning decisively at home.

2 Comments

Leave a Reply to abimelec Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Top
WordPress Appliance - Powered by TurnKey Linux