The madness of March was on full display in the Patriot League on Sunday.
Navy led 72-70 with 3.6 seconds remaining when Boston University basketball freshman guard Chance Gladden took the in-bounds pass, sprinted up court and sank a deep 3-pointer from the Navy logo on midcourt to send the Terriers to the Patriot League championship game, while ending the top-seeded Midshipmen’s hopes of making March Madness.
‘I saw three seconds to go, I was just sprinting up the court, and when I let it go, it felt so good, I knew it was in,’ Gladden said in a postgame interview with CBS Sports Network.
The Terriers trailed as many as six points in the second half. Gladden’s heroic shot came after Navy’s Austin Benigni put the Midshipmen back up by two with 3 seconds to go after Gladden tied the score with a jumper inside the paint.
The win is a bracket-shifting one for the Patriot League. Not only does Navy get knocked out of the conference tournament game, but the conference will send a different representative to March Madness now with its automatic qualifier bid. The Midshipmen had been projected for a good chunk of the season as the conference’s representative in bracketology predictions for several weeks after going 17-1 in the regular season.
It also snapped a 14-game win streak for Navy.
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