Friday 10th December 2021
Son of the Chicago Bulls legend
Mad litter sends shock waves through the United States
Needed by David
What. For. A. Litter. From the center line, Ron Harper Junior kills the best college team in America. The son of a basketball legend and 8,000 partying students won’t believe their eyes. Harper Junior feels “like a child at Christmas” – and is probably already thinking of the NBA.
Ron Harper Junior has just turned one of the most important litters of his life. With just 13 seconds on the clock, he hit a difficult fade-away jump shot to make it 67:66 for his Scarlet Knights from Rutgers University in New Jersey, USA. The around 8,000 students in the arena are freaking out. But the country’s best college team, Indiana’s Purdue University, doesn’t have to wait long for an answer. With 3.4 seconds she takes the lead again. For a moment, horror spreads across the entire hall. But then the spectacle really starts.
After the throw-in, Harper receives the ball deep in his own half of the court. A couple of dribbles with the right, a couple of dribbles with the left. Two defenders stand in his way, the seconds on the clock are counting down mercilessly. But the forward with the number 24 dances them both out – and just lifts off a meter behind the center line and lets go of his throw for eternity. While the ball is still in the air, the siren sounds for the final whistle. The crowd, which has been so loud all evening, can only watch and hope. Then the play equipment actually sails through the net and the atmosphere in the hall explodes again. Harper is jumping like crazy on the spot, players, coaches, supervisors, cheerleaders and fans storm the floor like mad and surround the 21-year-old. The final score is 70:68.
“It’s like a dream”
At the end of the day, the youngster has 30 points. He only made five missed throws in the entire game, hit five of seven threesomes and also got ten rebounds. The win against the country’s number 1 is the biggest regular win of the season in the history of Rutgers University (the first ever against a top-ranked team) and amazes not only New Jersey students but the entire college basketball world. After all, Purdue had won its first eight games of the season in an impressive manner.
Then came Ron Harper Junior. Son of five-time NBA champion Ron Harper, who dominated the league with the Chicago Bulls around Michael Jordan from 1996 to 1998 and then also celebrated championships with Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal at the Los Angeles Lakers. “I jumped like a little kid at Christmas,” said Harper Junior after the big win. “It’s like a dream. Honestly, if I woke up afterwards and lay in my bed, I wouldn’t have been surprised. That was crazy.”
“It’s good for our confidence,” continues Harper. “We proved a lot to ourselves tonight. We knew we could play with anyone in the country, it was just about going out there and doing it.” His team even had to do without some flu-sick players. The forward is now the first player in league history to score 30 points and a buzzer beater in a game against a number one seeded team.
Magic honors Harper
Finally, via Twitter, the 21-year-old also receives one of the greatest praise given in basketball. None other than Earvin “Magic” Johnson reverently describes the last seconds of the game and Harper’s brilliant throw with the siren and adds a triple “wow” at the end. Considered one of the best basketball players of all time, Johnson won five championship titles with the Lakers and played against Harper Senior for many years. Father Harper Senior doesn’t even know what to do with all those feelings and says to nj.com: “I’m sitting here and my hands are still shaking!”
The victory comes at the perfect time for the Scarlet Knights, having suffered three defeats in the last few seconds last month. If the Harper Junior team had lost, they would have fallen back to a record of four wins and five losses. This would have made it almost impossible to reach the NCAA tournament in March, in which the college champions will be played out at the end. Rutgers had reached the prestigious tournament last season for the first time since 1991 and had only qualified seven times.
Instead, the Scarlet Knights have now kept their post-season hopes alive. Thanks to a crazy throw in the proverbial last second. A litter that the team almost couldn’t have given. Because Ron Harper Junior had already signed up for the last NBA draft to play with the professionals. Then he withdrew his name after the odds hadn’t been good and announced, “My job here is not over yet.” Was he thinking of his historic buzzer beater? The NBA scouts should also have watched closely.