Andre Hollins' sparkling three free throws guided Minnesota Golden Gophers to register a stunning victory over Stanford Cardinal 66-63 in a closely fought game on Saturday night.
Hollins' glittering free throws came in only 0.4 seconds in the fifth-place game of the Battle 4 Atlantis.
''It was real tough today because I couldn't stop thinking about yesterday," Hollins, who scored 41 points in the previous game, said. ''I knew it would be a physical game and it was. I knew it from the first shot I took when I got hit hard and they kept it up so I became a distributor for our big guys and that was fine.''
Highly-focused Hollins played for 31 minutes and scored eight points, but his most important contribution came just before the end of the game.
''It was just the ball, the rim and me,'' he said.
With scores of both the teams tied at 63, the ball was in the possession of the Cardinal. Soon Hollins took control of the ball and shot it from the midcourt, but the ball hit the right arm of Cardinal guard Chasson Randle. The officials added 0.4 seconds back on the clock for the game. Hollins utilized this time to hit three free throws and clinch the unbelievable victory for his team.
''I couldn't believe he was even near me,'' Hollins said. ''You're taught to jump away not into but I'm glad the officials saw it.''
Stanford coach Johnny Dawkins could not believe what happened during the last 0.4 seconds.
''It's difficult for any young man to be involved in a play like that,'' he said. ''I think at some point in time, at some level, for all these athletes who play so much basketball, they're all involved in a play like that. It's one of the most difficult plays to live with. He has to understand it's never decided on the last play."
"That's just fiction. That play didn't decide the game for us. There were other times when we fouled jump shooters and you need to accumulate the free throws they made on those. It didn't decide the ballgame. It is a culmination of plays that adds up to that,'' Dawkins further said.
Hollins was not at his best on Saturday night and got only one out of eight attempts from the field. But he shot with outstanding accuracy from the free throw line and got six out of seven attempts.
It was a closely fought game and both the teams had an equal opportunity to taste victory. At the halftime, Minnesota and Stanford tied with 32 points each. But because of Hollins' last minute surge, the Gophers outscored the Cardinal in the second half 34-31 and won the game.
''It's a tough loss to swallow. You have to bounce back,'' Dawkins said. ''I think we learned about our group today and what we think we're capable of doing. That's what we are going to focus on.''
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