Holy Mackerel Moment?

A "Holy Mackerel moment" refers to the late, great Al McGuire's call of a game-winning three-pointer by Georgia Tech's power forward James Forrest in a 1992 second-round NCAA game. The play started with GT inbounding the ball at half-court with 0.8 seconds remaining. The spinning three-point dagger upset #2 seed USC and 'Baby Jordan' Harold Miner. It was Forrest's first and only three-point shot of the year.

The game was played in the then-new Bradley Center and yours truly was in attendance (in fact, outside there was a blizzard going on and Susan was at home in Monona ready to give birth to our son Tyler at any moment). The winning shot would never have happened if not for some good defense - by the Trojans. USC had just taken the lead and GT was scrambling to get up court when a Trojan deflected the ball out of bounds and that set up the in-bounds play. Without the deflection no way does GT even get a shot off. Here's the game clip.


The games in Milwaukee that year also featured Memphis's Penny Hardaway and Pepperdine's Doug Christie. In the Battle of the Big Butts, Oliver Miller and Arkansas outlasted Popeye Jones and Murray State - that day at least I liked big butts and I can not lie....

NCAA tournament action in person is hard to beat.