Wednesday Night Basketball Chose Chaos: Four Buzzer Beaters!!

The beautiful thing about sports is that you never know when you’re going to witness a classic. The terrible thing about sports is that sometimes four "classics" happen within two hours of each other, and your heart rate monitor thinks you’re running a marathon when you’re actually just eating nachos on the couch.

Wednesday night was not for the faint of heart. It was a buffet of buzzer beaters. Four games ended on last-second prayers, and not a single one of them was normal.

Here is a breakdown of the madness, ranked by how much they defied physics and logic.

1. Kentucky Performs an Exorcism

The Scenario: Down one point. 1.6 seconds left. Ball on the opposite baseline.

The Result: A miracle.

Kentucky had to channel the ghost of their worst nightmare to win this one. Freshman center Malachi Moreno caught a full-court pass, turned, and drained a jumper as time expired.

If that sequence sounds familiar, it’s because it is an exact frame-by-frame reenactment of Christian Laettner’s shot for Duke against Kentucky in 1992. You know, the play that has haunted every Kentucky fan for 30 years?

The Wildcats basically looked at the tapes of their greatest trauma and said, "Hey, that worked pretty well, let's try that." It’s poetic. It’s ironic. It’s the sports equivalent of therapy.

2. SMU: The "Boopie" Game

The Scenario: Down two. 2.6 seconds left. Half-court.

The Result: A heave from the logo.

When you are down two with seconds left, the game plan is usually "get to the rim." SMU’s game plan was "Give it to Boopie."

Boopie Miller (yes, that is his name, and yes, it is magnificent) took the inbound, dribbled twice, and launched a prayer from mid-court against Virginia Tech. It went in.

Getting beat at the buzzer is tough. Getting beat at the buzzer by a half-court shot is devastating. Getting beat at the buzzer by a half-court shot from a guy named Boopie is the kind of thing that makes you question your life choices.

3. Ole Miss Plays Pinball

The Scenario: Overtime against No. 21 Georgia. Tie game. 6.5 seconds left.

The Result: The ugliest, most beautiful thing ever.

This game had 16 ties. Nobody wanted to win. It was a polite refuse-to-lose-off.

Senior AJ Storr drove for the win. He missed. The ball hit the rim, hit the backboard, bounced around like it was in a dryer, and fell into the hands of freshman Patton Pinkins.

With less than a second left, Pinkins threw it back up. It went in.

This wasn't a drawn-up play. This was pure chaos. It was the basketball gods flipping a coin and deciding, "Eh, give it to the Rebels." Sorry, Georgia.

4. TCU: Shooters Gonna Shoot

The Scenario: Down two against unranked West Virginia. 2.8 seconds left.

The Result: Audacity.

Marta Suarez is a shooter. She leads No. 10 TCU in 3-point attempts. But on Wednesday night, she hadn't made a single 3-pointer. Not one. The rim was closed for business.

So, naturally, with the game on the line, TCU said, "Let's give it to the person who has missed everything tonight."

And because sports make zero sense, she nailed it. A jab step, a swish, and a win. That is unearned confidence, folks, and I respect it immensely.

The Moral of the Story:

Never leave early to beat traffic. And if you are playing a team with a guy named Boopie, guard him at half-court.