Flashback: HS Freshman Nails Full Court Buzzer-Beater Being Called 'Basketball Play of the Year'
Editor’s note: Our readers responded strongly to this story when it originally ran; we’re reposting it here in case you missed it.
Blake Peters, a freshman at Evanston Township High School in Illinois, the same piece of suburban Chicago in which can be found Northwestern University, hit a buzzer-beating game-winner Friday night that most of the purple-bedecked collegians and quite possibly the pros on the Chicago Bulls wouldn’t be able to pull off:
Everything about this sequence is just a gut punch for the kids from Maine South High in Park Ridge, Illinois, who lost the game 45-44.
All the kid shooting the free throw had to do was make the shot, and Hawks would’ve gone up by three points, at worst at risk of overtime in case of miracle.
Instead, Peters grabbed the rebound, shook the kid who initially feared he’d fouled him, heaved the ball 80 feet, and splash.
Ballgame.
You won’t find a better buzzer-beating game winner at any level of basketball from pee-wee to the NBA all season long. Some are calling it the “basketball play of the year.”
Plus, you gotta love the retro look the kid has going.
Are those … Rec Specs? Man, where’s Kurt Rambis when you need him? Maybe Peters can grow himself a rockin’ ’80s mullet to go with the glasses.
The shot itself brought to mind a young Tyreke Evans winning the game for the Sacramento Kings against Memphis back in 2010, though Blake’s shot was longer:
Or Jae Crowder’s failed full-court pass that was nonetheless the greatest full-court shot that didn’t count in NBA history:
Or 13-year-old Easton Gamoke, who “had a great day at school today” when his buzzer-beater got on the local news — and then he just casually tossed in another one.
So soak in the glory, Blake Peters. And for the love of the basketball gods, don’t ever lose those Rec Specs.
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