Portland State hits buzzer-beater of the year to shock Northern Arizona

Imagine you're a college basketball team. Imagine that your opponent just a hit a 3-pointer and now you're down 1 point after leading by 8 a little more than a minute ago. Imagine you now have 0.4 seconds left in the game and a full court to cross, with no automatic ball advancement like they have in the NBA.

It sounds like the final moments of a painful loss.

That was the dire situation of the Portland State men's basketball team on Saturday, which found itself down a point to Northern Arizona on Saturday. The Vikings seemingly had the game in hand when they went up 86-78 with 1:21 remaining, but then an offensive foul, a turnover and three straight missed free throws opened the door for NAU to seemingly get the win on a final-second Liam Lloyd 3-pointer.

The NAU team and home crowd started celebrating the shot like a game-winner and the clock actually hit zero on the clock shown on broadcast, but further review put a fraction of a second back on.

It still looked like a miracle for NAU, as surely Portland State couldn't move the ball upcourt and score all in four tenths of a second, right?

Right?

You know it's a big shot when the announcer's voice cracks.

With less than half a second remaining, Portland State forward Isaiah Johnson, guarded by two NAU defenders, caught a full-court pass from Hunter Woods and redirected the ball for a split-second stunner. Further replay showed Johnson didn't even have the ball fully in hand before he pushed it toward the basket, and took a hard landing on that same hand before getting mobbed by his teammates.

The win saw Portland State, now 10-16 and 4-9 in conference play, leapfrog NAU in the Big Sky standings. Johnson finished the game with nine points on 4-of-5 shooting off the bench.