What’s Trending is a column examining the week that was in college basketball social media. Matthew Eisenberg (@matteise) is your weekly host.
Last week was filled with drama and intrigue around the college basketball world, with plenty of close games heading into the waning seconds.
On Wednesday night, Marquette was staring at a three-point deficit with less than one second remaining when Markus Howard inbounded the ball to Sam Houser, who immediately decided 40 minutes was not enough basketball for this game…
On Thursday night, Oregon watched a large second-half lead dwindle to just three points with a few seconds left. Instead of allowing UCLA to attempt a game-tying three-pointer, Dana Altman instructed his team to foul the Bruins. After Jaylen Hands made the first attempt to trim the lead to just two, chaos ensued. While the game would go to overtime, the Bruins found a way to escape Eugene with a win in extra five minutes. The debate on whether to foul or not to foul rages on…
Not to be outdone by their power conference brethren, Thursday night was filled with last second drama in both the WAC and the Sun Belt. In the former, New Mexico State’s Johnny McCants delivered this half-court heave in the dying seconds….
And in the Sun Belt, Georgia Southern’s Tookie Brown raced downcourt to find Quan Jackson on the wing for this game-winner….
While Thursday night was filled with plenty of drama, Saturday might have been even more noteworthy. At Florida State, top-ranked Duke found itself down a point with the ball. After a series of timeouts, Duke’s Cam Reddish got as wide open as any player could in this situation….
Shortly after the Duke/Florida State ending, an SEC battle between Texas A&M and Alabama was coming down to its own thrilling end. With the Crimson Tide up a a pair, Texas A&M’s TJ Starks took an inbound pass, went flying up the court and put in this running three-pointer as the horn went off…
Perhaps the wildest ending of the week, however, came courtesy of UTEP and Rice. After Rice’s Trey Murphy III hit a three-pointer to put the Owls up by a point, UTEP was faced with a difficult inbound pass and a miracle… yet managed to do all of this in the span of under 0.5 seconds.
While the results of the following games were clearer down the stretch, there were plenty who were holding their breath waiting for the clock to strike zero. In Lexington, Texas A&M threw up this miracle shot that caused bettors across the country to uniformly gasp in horror….
Twenty-seven percent of bettors jumped for joy when Butler’s Kamar Baldwin decided to take this three-pointer down four points with the clock expiring….
College basketball had plenty of noteworthy moments beyond the final few seconds last week. We begin by looking back at a tribute given to recently-passed Tyler Trent during the Purdue-Michigan State broadcast…
We were also given another highlight reel play by Murray State’s Ja Morant. The mid-major superstar is averaging 23.7 points per game, 10.7 assists per game, and grabbing 6.3 rebounds per game. He is giving opposing guards nightmares when he pops up on the other side of the floor.
After getting the big win in its game against Florida, Tennessee’s Grant Williams gave the “Gator Chomp” to fans as he was leaving the floor.
And while plenty happened on the court last week, a decision off of it garnered plenty of attention too…