YouTube Gold: Austin Rivers Becomes Legend

For Game Day, we thought we’d feature arguably the greatest buzzer beater for Duke in the history of the Duke-UNC thang. Candidates include Gene Banks’ 1981 thriller and the double buzzer beaters by Tre Jones and Wendell Moore, but Austin Rivers’ buzzer beater just had…so much…swagger.

When UNC misses, Miles Plumlee gets the rebound and Rivers doesn’t run from the moment…he runs to it. He comes back to Plumlee to get the ball and brings it up the left side of the court.

When he gets across half court, Rivers goes to his right, and UNC inexplicably leaves Tyler Zeller to guard a guard on the perimeter.

Rivers rocks him up and back a bit and Zeller can’t match his rhythm and then, when has him where he wants him, lets fly.

And lo, his aim was true, and he knew it.

How do we know that he knew?

Because as soon as he let it fly, Rivers was heading the other way. He knew it was good. He knew he just carved his name in the history books.

Footnote – Some UNC students were making a video about Duke Game Day in Chapel Hill. They were filming in a bar when Rivers hit that shot and the crowd was absolutely stunned. Then someone said “cut that camera off.”

As the Vegas guys said, it’s not the winning, it’s the collecting. And that was some outrageous collecting.