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Chalmers’ three-pointer that sent KU into overtime with Memphis took Harkness back 45 years. In 1963, Harkness nailed a jump shot in the final seconds for Loyola of Chicago that sent its 1963 title game against two-time defending champion Cincinnati into overtime. Loyola went on to prevail 60-58.
The ramifications have lasted a lifetime for Harkness.
“It opened doors for me, changed things,” Harkness told The Star. “For Mario, like me, it will be there the rest of his life, and I would tell him it’s a beautiful feeling. It’s been 45 years, and I still get goose pimples thinking about it. I don’t know how I would have lived if I had missed.”
For players who hit the winning or tying shots in the NCAA championship, their lives have been affected by those magical moments, relived every March, replayed when the madness is in full swing.
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Even if Vic Rouse never played basketball, let alone produce a historic game-winning shot in 1963 for Loyola of Chicago against Cincinnati, he was destined for stardom, teammate Les Hunter says.
“You could almost predict it would be him that did it,” Hunter, from Overland Park, said about Rouse’s play on that fateful day against Cincinnati.
Rouse, the son of a Baptist minister, overcame polio as a child.
“They told him he would never walk right,” Hunter said.
Rouse proved them wrong.In the final seconds of overtime, in a 58-58 tie, Hunter misfired on a jump shot. Rouse, who up to that moment had scored 13 points, made his 12th rebound count in a way that can’t be measured. He took Hunter’s miss and laid in the game-winner as time was expiring. It completed a 15-point second-half rally for Loyola.
Rouse, who played high school ball in Nashville, Tenn., was a seventh-round draft pick by the Cincinnati Royals, but he opted for a life beyond basketball. Rouse would earn three master’s degrees and a doctorate, and may have been best known for planning educational systems used in America and Europe.
Rouse died in 1999.
“He opened a lot of doors for himself,” Hunter said.
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The tongue-wagging freshman was a hit for North Carolina. But until Michael Jordan broke the hearts of Patrick Ewing and John Thompson, he wasn’t the household name he would become later in life.
Jordan put himself squarely on the basketball map in 1982. His 16-foot jump shot from the left wing was money with 15 seconds remaining, and it turned out to be the difference in the Tar Heels’ 63-62 victory over the Georgetown Hoyas.
“We all knew he was a terrific player, but for Michael to take that shot, as a freshman and make it, it certainly proved to be his coming-out party,” said Matt Doherty, Jordan’s college teammate and currently coach at Southern Methodist.
“The difference with Mario Chalmers is, he had to shoot the ball. But what makes Michael’s shot more remarkable is, he didn’t have to shoot it. He just had the confidence that he was going to make it. He chose to take it. He said, ‘I’m open, I’m comfortable, I’m OK with this.’ ”
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Lorenzo Charles still gets asked to speak at functions in Raleigh, N.C., keeping his name in the spotlight 25 years after he saved the day for North Carolina State.
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