A perfect score, from start to finish. This is how we can sum up Kemba Walker’s last shot in this duel between UConn and Pittsburgh, on March 10, 2011 at Madison Square Garden in New York.
The two teams meet in the quarter-finals of the Big East tournament. There are a few seconds left to play. Tied 74 all and the ball is in the hands of Huskies star Kemba Walker. The future playmaker of the Hornets then the Celtics and now the Knicks has two options mentioned by his coach during the time-out: play one-on-one or make a pass if defensive help arises.
“The best player on this team, in my opinion, still took a winning shot, a big shot”declared admiring his coach Jim Calhoun for ESPN. “I knew which option he was going to choose when he put down his dribble. Kemba put in a bunch of important shots. “
Because indeed, Kemba Walker not only scored, but his sequence, mastered to perfection, is a technical marvel. He concludes with a stepback and destabilizes his defender, who ends up on the ground as he rises to shoot at mid-distance. The ball pierces the net: 76-74, UConn victory.
A nickname: Cardiac Kemba!
With an 8/22 in the shoot, the Huskies star has not yet had the game of his life, but his last shoot redeems his game and marks the spirits. All in the “Mecca of basketball”.
“I missed an important shot in the last seconds, but my teammates told me to stay aggressive”he said, at the time. “The whole world knew the ball was going to land in my hands, that I wanted this shot. Moreover, we arrived in this game being the outsiders, everyone said that we were going to lose. We stuck together and everyone was happy, that’s why they jumped on me. ”
A few weeks after this buzzer shot, Kemba Walker will conclude his last NCAA season in style with the university title and the trophy for best player of the “Final Four”.
