As regulation expired, Mitchel Anderson felt good about the chances of his last-second half-court heave. As it left his hand, it felt like all the other trick shots the Cal Poly Pomona guard drained before shootarounds.

But his shot ricocheted off the backboard, forcing overtime between the Division-II Broncos and the Cal State Dominguez Hills Toros, their California Collegiate Athletic Association rivals.

‘That’s when all hell broke loose,’ Pomona head coach Greg Kamansky said of the back-and forth, double-overtime contest that followed.

Neither team scored in the first overtime period. But the second and final overtime turned out to be a wild sequence, which featured three shots that appeared to clinch victory in the final seconds. Fittingly, the final buzzer beater belonged to Anderson. The junior guard did what he couldn’t at the end of regulation, nailing a three-quarter court shot with 0.6 seconds left on the clock to give Pomona the 60-58 win.

‘I thought, ‘Did I really just hit that?” Anderson said. ‘That’s all the thoughts I had time for. The court was swarmed after that.’

The 1,631 fans inside Pomona’s Kellogg Gym were treated to an unforgettable ending. Kamansky said Dominguez Hills seemed to have the momentum after the scoreless overtime period.

‘At that point, you had to be thinking that the first team to score a basket would win,’ Kamansky said. ‘Heading into the second overtime, I told our guys to forget everything from the first and start over.’

Kamansky’s team listened. With 8.7 seconds to play, DeRonn Scott put Pomona up two with a clutch 3-pointer from the right corner.

‘I told him, if you have it, shoot it,’ Kamansky said. ‘We were only down two, but that shot put us in a good spot.’

After the shots he had already seen, Brandon Marcus, the Broncos’ play-by-play announcer, didn’t assume the game was over.

‘I was courtside and in the back of my head, any replay guy has to think that was it,’ Marcus said. ‘But the game had been so crazy until that point, anything was possible.’

Marcus couldn’t predict two more clutch plays to end the game, though. Down 58-57, the Toros guard Myron Green shoveled it to Robert Willhite, who buried a 3-pointer with 0.6 seconds left to give Dominguez Hills the lead.

‘We had them trapped in our zone,’ Kamansky said. ‘They broke off it, (Willhite) got free off a pump fake and sunk it.’

Marcus said Dominguez Hills had good reason to start celebrating after that shot. The Broncos had a fraction of a second to shoot the ball and were out of timeouts.

That’s when Anderson, who had come so close on his desperation heave at the end of regulation, got his chance at redemption. He caught the ball on the inbounds pass on the left wing, turned and threw a three-quarter court shot that swished through the net.

Mayhem ensued after that.

‘Before I knew it, I had (assistant) coach Bill Bannon on top of me in a dog pile at half court,’ Anderson said. ‘That’s something you always see on TV, but you never think it’ll happen to you.’

After the 60-58 win, Pomona sports information director Ivan Alber submitted the tape to a friend. Within hours, the tape went viral. 

And the attention made national news when Anderson’s miracle shot was the SportsCenter Top Play throughout the weekend.

Anderson’s shot wasn’t the only thing to go viral. Marcus’ game-winning call was played each time ESPN showed the clip.

‘There was a point where I didn’t even know what I said,’ Marcus said. ‘I lost it. I got out of my chair and screamed with the rest of the crowd.’ 

Anderson said he’s seen the clip ‘about 50 times’ since he sunk the shot last weekend. And even though his team is preparing for the conference tournament this week, he said watching the shot never gets old.

‘There are so many different versions, crowd views and camera phones and everything else,’ Anderson said. ‘I could watch them all.’

nctoney@syr.edu

Published on February 27, 2012 at 12:00 pm

Contact Nick: nctoney@syr.edu | @nicktoneytweets