UCLA was in a predicament.
Down by three against Cal with seven seconds left, coach Cori Close called a time-out to decide who was going to take the shot.
Two weeks ago, Close wouldn’t have thought twice. Kari Korver was the Bruins go-to 3-point shooter. The junior guard had been raining 3s all season – 61 in total – and her last name was synonymous with 3-point shooting throughout the conference.
The MASSIVE Kari Korver three that sent @UCLAWBB to OT gets the Bruins’ #12Best Moment! #Pac12Hoopshttps://t.co/xbAbPMHRqv
— Pac-12 Networks (@Pac12Networks) March 6, 2016
But Korver was also in one of the worst shooting slumps of her career.
The guard had missed her last 12 3-point attempts, spanning almost three games.
Close decided to go with her gut. With time running out, Korver ran off a pick and caught the ball in front of her bench, quickly releasing it while falling to the sideline.
“I kind of hit the ground and my team went crazy,” Korver said. “I knew it went in when they were going nuts but I wasn’t totally sure when it left my hands.”
The shot went in and Korver was fouled. She would miss the free throw, but it didn’t matter. No. 3-seed UCLA (24-7, 14-4 Pac-12) would cruise in overtime and end up beating No. 10-seed Cal (15-18, 4-14) by a final tally of 73-67.
Up until Korver’s shot found the net, the game was fairly predictable. Cal was expected to pound it inside to its star freshman forward Kristine Anigwe. The Bears did, and she finished with 26 points.
UCLA was accustomed, as of late, to getting big games from sophomore forward Monique Billings and sophomore guard Jordin Canada. Both played to their normal high levels, scoring more than 20 apiece.
Though Cal was a 10th seed, and struggled for the majority of the regular season, a big win over Arizona State on Friday showed that it was a legitimate contender to take the tournament, and gave UCLA the fight that many expected.
“It was very intense, high-energy game,” Billings said. “That feeling is terrible (when losing in overtime). So we just had to take what was ours. And that shot, Kari’s shot, that 3-point shot, definitely sparked us and gave us the energy to finish it off in overtime.”
Canada helped keep UCLA in the game up to that point and because of the way she had been playing, some thought the ball would have gone to her. But to the point guard, the choice to get Korver the ball was never in doubt.
“I told Korver to keep shooting no matter what,” Canada said. “Even before the game I told her that today was going to be the game that she was going to make one.”
Her teammates’ trust had paid off, and though making the shot was big, missing it would have been bigger.
The team would have lost to Cal in a hard-fought game, just like they had on Dec. 21, before they had really evolved as a team, and a similar loss would have felt like a regression. They wouldn’t have gotten the rematch with Oregon State that they had badly wanted and getting a No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament would have been out of the question. Korver would have gone into the NCAA Tournament having not hit a 3-pointer in almost a month.
“It’s been frustrating the last two days to keep missing,” Korver said. “The last shot I just tried not to think about anything. You’re a shooter you have to let go of your misses and keep shooting which is kind of what I did.”
But it went in.
They won in overtime.
And while Korver’s next shot probably won’t have the same impact that this one did, it will be in the Pac-12 championship game.