Kevyn Robertson’s buzzer-beater gives WL Northern 54-53 OT win
SOUTH LYON >> Every single person in the gymnasium was counting down the remaining time in their heads.
One-thousand-one. Catch. Dribble. One-thousand-two. Release.
Tick. Tick. BOOM.
With just 2.7 seconds remaining in overtime when Walled Lake Northern inbounded the ball, Kevyn Robertson knew he had time to get off his shot at the elbow — but he’d best not hesitate at all.
And the minute it went through the hoop, as the buzzer sounded, he knew he’d given the Knights a comefrom-behind, 54-53 win in overtime, knocking off previously unbeaten South Lyon East on its home floor to forge what’s essentially a three-way tie atop the Lakes Valley Conference.
“We drew up a play on the sideline. Coach had me take the shot. I had a couple of seconds, so I knew I could get at least one dribble. Came off, two people jumped at me, I pump-faked, stepped into my shot like I practice every day, knocked it down,” said the senior, who’s hit one other buzzerbeater, a tip-in bucket in the district semifinal against Walled Lake Central his sophomore year.
“I already had in my head what I was going to do. … I just saw the shot go in, and I looked up, and the clock ran out. And I was like ‘Let’s go. Game time. We did it. Team win.’”
And a huge team win, as far as the standings go, too.
The victory ties the Knights (5-1, 4-1 LVC) in the loss column with the Lions of South Lyon (5-1, 4-1), while East (5-1, 5-1) remains a half a game ahead, with one more league contest in the books. None of the three league leaders have faced each other yet.
“They’re a first-place team, and that’s what we want to go after. They were as advertised. They were great. Hit all kinds of shots, and I thought for a lot of it, any time we were able to make a run, they were able to stop us with a big shot,” said first-year Northern coach Ryan Negoshian, whose team entered the fourth quarter down eight points, 40-32, but tied it at 47-47 to send it to overtime.
“I kept telling the kids, ‘It’s on us. It’s on us.’ You know, we’re the ones that are going to decide this. It’s about execution, and the team that executes best at the end here, is going to be able to win this. We had the ball at the end, and were able to execute. If they had the ball at the end, the way they were executing, it might’ve gone the other way. But we were lucky enough to have the ball, and Kevyn hit that great shot.”
Adam Jagacki’s 3-pointer with two seconds left in the third quarter gave
East that eight-point lead headed to the final period of regulation, but the Cougars’ next field goal came on a drive by Jagacki with two minutes remaining to tie it at 44-44.
“In the fourth quarter, I kept telling the guys, ‘Hey, I’m not going to call timeouts, I’m not going to set up plays. I want you to just play.’ We’ve got a bunch of kids who can make plays. Just fabulous,” East coach Ron Levin said. “Put the ball in Bryce Bird’s hands, the best player on the court, and told him to go make plays, and he did, down the stretch.”
After Jesse Lawson split a pair from the line with 1:28 left to give Northern a 45-44 lead, Bird’s goahead 3-pointer with 20 seconds left made it 47-45 East. Lawson answered with a lay-up with 10 seconds left to tie it at 47-47, sending it to overtime.
Lawson’s 3-pointer with 2:45 left put Northern up 50-47, but Bird cut it to one with a steal and a layup with 1:30 left. After Alex Klein hit both ends of a one-and-one with 55.2 seconds left, to put Northern back up three, Bird hit a floater with 44 seconds remaining to make it a onepoint game again, then hit a pull-up jumper with 14 seconds to go to give East a 53-52 lead.
Northern missed its first chance to regain the lead, but a turnover in the backcourt gave the Knights the ball in the corner near the end of their
own bench. That’s where Negoshian drew up a play that would either go to Robertson, a Spring Arbor signee, or to Johnny Archer in the post.
“That’s a three-year varsity player, senior that knew … how much time he had, so he caught it, got himself a good shot, pulled up and hit it,” Negoshian said, admitting he was counting in his head, as well.
“Yes. Absolutely. Whether you look at it or not, you kind of have that clock in your mind, like ‘All right, come on. Get it off, get it off, get it off.’ And right about when he got it off was when I was thinking ‘All right, you’d better shoot.’ He’s a great player, a college player, and I think he has that clock in his mind, as well, so that was how he was able to do it. He knew exactly how much time he had to get the shot off.”
Roberson’s game-winning bucket gave him 12 points on the contest, while Lawson finished with 14. Bird finished with 19.
“So proud of my guys. Sometimes it’s all about the wins and the losses, but the effort all night was there, every possession. We’ve got guys right now that are crushed, because they put everything out there. At the end of the game, the kid from Northern just made a heck of a play,” Levin said. “That last three seconds, I’m going to replay in my head until eternity. I think we were in the right spots, but like I said, Robertson’s a heck of a player. He’s going to play in college next year, and he made a heck of a shot. We said ‘Don’t bail him out by fouling him. Make him make the shot.’ And he did.”