NEW YORK — Chris Chiozza could not remember ever hitting a true buzzer-beater to win a game. High school, club, whatever.
He'll never forget his first.
Neither will anyone in Gator Nation.
It took Chiozza just four seconds to turn what loomed as one of the all-time crushing defeats in Florida basketball history into one of the most memorable finishes in NCAA Tournament history. UF's 6-foot guard took an inbounds pass, zipped past a couple Wisconsin defenders, raced the length of the floor and threw in a running 3-point shot as time expired in overtime to give the fourth-seeded Gators an improbable 84-83 "Sweet 16" win over the stunned eighth-seeded Badgers in the East Region semifinals at sold-out Madison Square Garden.
The wild ending sent the UF bench onto the floor to mob Chiozza, while Wisconsin's players — who got to overtime when a prayer of their own was answered in the final seconds of regulation — watched the celebration with looks of disbelief.
"I don't know how it happened, I just know it went in," Chiozza said. "Now, we have another game to play."
Yes, they do. The Gators (27-8) advanced to Sunday's "Elite Eight" regional final, where Sunday they'll face a familiar foe in seventh-seeded and fellow Southeastern Conference brother South Carolina (25-10) at 2:20 p.m., with the winner advancing to next weekend's Final Four at Glendale, Ariz. The Gamecocks got there by demolishing No. 3-seed Baylor in Friday's earlier semifinals 70-50.
The nightcap was far more dramatic — what with 10 lead changes, seven ties and UF sophomore guard KeVaughn Allen erupting for a career-high 35 points — and actually ended well into Saturday morning.
"I won't ramble for awhile, I know it's a little bit late, but my goodness, just a huge win," said UF coach Mike White, who is just a victory away from taking the Gators back to the Final Four in just his second season since replacing the iconic Billy Donovan. "What a wonderful college basketball game to be a part of. I'm so proud of our guys, I can't even put it into words the way that I would like to. I wish I had more thought, more time to put more thought into it."
Wonder if he could do it four seconds?
The Florida bench erupts after seeing Chris Chiozza's shot fall through the goal, with Coach Mike White pumping his fist in the background.
Chris Chiozza is mobbed by his teammates after sinking the insane game winner.
The game was insane, what with both teams blowing double-digit leads and Florida doing it twice in the second half. The Gators, down 11 with eight minutes to go in the first half, closed the period on a 21-8 run after Allen, who started 1-for-8 from the floor, heated up on his way to 15 first-half points that had UF up 34-32 at the half.
Allen remained hot in the second, helping the Gators take the margin out to 10 inside the 15-minute mark before the Badgers (27-10) took off on a 12-1 run to go up 53-52. UF, though, answered with nine straight points and led by 12 with just over four minutes left; and by eight, 72-64, with 1:30 remaining.
That's when everything started going haywire, first for the Gators.
UW, which had all five starters score in double figures, got some big late buckets from Nigel Hayes (22 points, 6 rebounds) and Bronson Koenig (13 points), while UF failed to put the game away by missing some free throws.
With 16 seconds to go and his team up by three points, Florida center Kevarrius Hayes (8 points, 7 rebounds) lost the ball in traffic down low and with time running down Wisconsin guard Zak Showalter got just enough of a step on Chiozza and let fly a running, circus 3-pointer that swished through net with 2.5 seconds left, tied the game at 72 and sent it to overtime.
The Gators looked shellshocked.
"The momentum swing was huge when he made that," UF reserve forward Canyon Barry said. "You just felt like it was a HORSE shot."
No one knew it'd be the second-zaniest one of the night.
After a slow start, KeVaughn Allen scored a career-high 35 points against the Badgers, the most ever scored by a Florida player in an NCAA Tournament game.
Florida fell behind twice by five in the extra period, the second time at 80-75 with less than a minute to go. A driving layup by Allen cut the lead to three and one of two free throws by UW forward Ethan Happ (21 points, 6 rebounds) made it a four-point game with 42 seconds left.
"We didn't stop playing," senior point guard Kasey Hill said. "We kept fighting and showed our resiliency."
Barry quickly was able to draw a foul at UF's end and knock down two free throws to pull within 81-79. After the second make, the Gators set their full-court press, with UW's Hayes opting to throw over it to a wide-open Khalil Iverson sprinting for the goal. Iverson caught the ball and appeared to be going in for an easy layup or dunk, but Barry chased him down, blocked the shot cleanly and in the open floor Chiozza drove through the Badgers for an uncontested layup that tied the score with 24 seconds left.
"If Canyon doesn't make that block, we're not in here smiling right now," junior forward Devin Robinson said. "He never gave up on the play."
Wisconsin got the ball to Hayes in the final seconds, drawing a fifth foul from senior forward Justin Leon with just four seconds left. Leon walked to the bench and Hayes stepped to the line, hit two to nudge the Badgers in front 83-81.
The Gators had no timeouts.
"Thank goodness we didn't, right?" White said.
Barry inbounded the ball, intent on getting it to Chiozza, with his elite speed, on the run and with a head of steam heading up the floor.
"He's extremely quick, one of the quickest guys we've faced all year," Koenig said. "We knew that coming in."
Chiozza gets his head of steam going on his way past Wisconsin's Nigel Hayes and to the game-winning basket and date in the Elite Eight.
When Chiozza grabbed the pass he already had the momentum to get past Hayes at half court, despite a nudge from the UW defender. Once by Hayes, though, no Badger stepped in to challenge Chiozza as he dashed toward the 3-point line. As he sprang forward and toward the basket, Chiozza let the ball go with just under a second to go.
It fell through at the horn.
"I just knew I had four seconds and I was trying to get down the court as fast as I could and if somebody was open I was going to pass it," he said. "I was really trying to get to the rim, but they did a good job of bumping me and slowing me down and that was the only shot I had, so I had to take that one."
Nobody wearing white was complaining.
As for the guys in red?
"I needed to do a better job of making him change directions. He's extremely quick with the ball, he was able to put it in one hand and kind of outrun me," Hayes said. "But he made a good shot. Sometimes that's what happens in this tournament."
Wisconsin advanced with a buzzer-beater against Xavier last year. Maybe this was just the Gators' turn, what with Mike MIller's memorable Butler shot now 17 years and 43 tournament games ago.
In fact, it was 19 years ago that White was on the receiving end of one the all-time buzzer-beaters when Valparaiso's Bryce Drew — the same guy who defeated White three times as Vanderiblt's coach this season — threw in a dagger to knock out White's Ole Miss team in 1998 opening-round play.
Ironically, Drew was in the Garden Friday night, having come to watch his brother, Scott, coach Baylor.
Did this one make up for that one?
"Hell yeah," White said. "With an emphasis on the hell."
