"You could not have written a script...

... that would match the drama here!" In life you are lucky to have a couple of truly amazing moments - John Skinner had one of those yesterday. John is an in-law of some variety - he is married to my brother's wife's sister (so I guess he's my sister-in-law's brother-in-law - at least that is the best I can make of it after some quick research). John rescued Jack last summer from a strong rip-current at Emerald Isle NC and likely saved his life - so we are big fans of John in any case. He's also a strong SCRABBLE player - but that isn't what this post is about. This post is about the 2007 NCAA Divsion II Basketball National Championship.

John is a volunteer assistant coach for the Barton Bulldogs. Barton is a tiny school (less than 1000 students) in Wilson NC - that has a solid basketball program. They finished the regular season ranked 15th in D-II and went on an unbelievable run in the NCAA tournament, beating some much bigger schools in route to a finals matchup with Winona State - winners of 57 straight games and defending D-II champs (and the team that knocked Barton out in the Elite-8 round of the tourney last year). So this is where is gets good - the game was shown on national television and the kids and I gathered around the tube trying to catch glimpses of "uncle John" on the bench. We did see him a few times - and the kids went crazy and we'd rewind the DVR to watch it again in slow motion. Well - the game was very competitive but Barton was down 7 points with about 45 seconds to go and it didn't look good. And that's when the magic started - Wilson's own Anthony Atkinson drove and hit a layup with 39 s remaining to make it 74-69. Barton fouled on the inbounds sending Winona's MVP Malvik to line for a 1-and-1.

Here is John looking slightly concerned about being down 5 points with Winona State's senior MVP going to the line...

More National TV coverage for Uncle John. Head Coach Ron Lievense was working hard.

But Malvik missed the front end, Barton rebounded, and Atkinson drove the length of the court and hit a 12 footer with 26 s left, score 74-71. Somewhat unbelievably, Barton's Kelvin McLean stole the inbounds and got it to Atkinson who was fouled while making a layup with 22 s left, score 74-73. The 82% free throw shooter was heartbreakingly short on the game-tying foul shot, and as soon as Jonte Flowers of Winona rebounded, Barton fouled. Flowers (75% free throw shooter on the year) bricked the first and made the second, making it a 2 point game (75-73) with 19.4 s on the clock. Yet again, Atkinson drove the length of the court and made a circus-quality reverse layup (this was probably the most clutch play imaginable) to tie it up with 7.6 s left. The inbounds pass went to Malvik (who looked absolutely focused on hitting the game winner) when 5' 11" freshman Billy Buffaloe (Fuquay-Varina NC, I couldn't make this up) made a great steal from behind with 4 seconds to go (this was incredible - you just didn't see it coming) and passed to the lightning-quick Atkinson - who dribbled in for the uncontested game-winning layup as time expired. It was movie script - it was better than movie script because no one would believe it in a movie.