Michigan beats Houston at buzzer
Poole nails 3 to send Wolverines to Sweet 16
WICHITA, Kan. — The unflappable freshman with swag to spare let loose a long 3-pointer just as the buzzer sounded, watched it splash through the net and took off on a dead sprint around the arena.
“I saw everybody celebrating,” Michigan’s Jordan Poole said later, “and I always thought if I hit a shot like that, I didn’t want to get tackled. So I tried to avoid everybody.”
He finally gave up, allowing the sweetest of parties to truly begin.
Poole’s buzzer-beater, which came after Houston squandered a chance to lock up a spot in the Midwest Region semifinals, lifted the third-seeded Wolverines to a 64-63 victory Saturday night — and left longtime coach John Beilein struggling to find the right words.
Dramatic? That’s a good place to start.
“I’m just trying to appreciate the moment of what just happened,” Beilein said. “When he makes that shot, I’m making sure the shot got off. I’m managing my team. I can’t even look at the celebration.”
“We did not play well, and credit Houston for that,” he said. “Sometimes you feel, well, geez, why did we win? But I’ve been on the other end of those many, many times. We got a fortunate break.”
That came when Devin Davis had a chance to seal the win, and the Cougars’ gritty forward missed a pair of foul shots with 3.6 seconds left. The Wolverines (30-7) called their final play, and Muhammad-Ali Abdur-Rahkman found Poole on the wing.
The youngster’s shot hit nothing but net.
“Sports is a great metaphor for life sometimes. It’s not always fair,” Houston coach Kelvin Sampson said. “I thought our team deserved to win that game. For 39 minutes, 57 seconds, I thought we were the better team. Credit their kid for hitting a big shot. It was a big, big shot he hit.”
Abdur-Rahkman and Moe Wagner scored 12