‘That’s why you don’t give in’: Buzzer beater a moment UGA’s Crump will never forget
After the first free throw clanged off the rim, Tyree Crump looked up at the Memorial Gymnasium clock.
The number flashed back at him: 5.1 seconds. The senior’s Georgia team trailed Vanderbilt 78-77 with just a quintet of seconds separating the Bulldogs and their 11th SEC loss.
Crump has always dreamed of making a winning shot at the buzzer, counting himself down from five seconds countless times playing as a kid. But at that moment in Nashville, he was one of the least likely heroes for the Bulldogs.
His career has been filled with ups and downs, with questionable shot selection and wild fluctuations in playing time.
His senior season has arguably been the most adversity-filled yet. His field goal percentage of 34.4 and three-point percentage of 31.9 through 28 games are career lows. Crump’s playing time has fallen off, too. After starting the first 14 games of the season, he’s come off the bench since and played 20 minutes or more just four times.
Head coach Tom Crean doesn’t view Crump as a bench player, he said, but rather a part of a main playing group that could slot into the starting lineup seamlessly. But the numbers didn’t lie: He hadn’t played well, and his minutes began to shrink.
All this personal adversity has come in the midst of a tough season for a Georgia team that had dreams of an NCAA tournament appearance. That ship, however, has sailed barring a SEC tournament championship.
After a loss to Florida on Feb. 5 in which Georgia blew a 22-point lead and Crump missed his only shot attempt in 14 minutes, Crean met with his senior.
“My big reminder was, there’s a lot of basketball left,” Crean said. “There’s a lot of shots left in you.”
Crump never stopped working hard. He remained hungry and striving for improvement in practice, Crean said. Setting that standard has been invaluable, especially on a team with nine freshmen.
“Seeing that, it just drives you like, ‘Hey, he’s a senior, he’s doing this,’” freshman guard Sahvir Wheeler said. “He’s just showing us how to be successful. I think younger guys, especially me, we’re all starting to pick up on that and try to fulfill that standard.”
That hunger from Crump showed up in Nashville after Scotty Pippen Jr. missed his second free throw. Fellow senior Jordan Harris tipped the rebound out to Crump, who briefly lost control. He lunged forward, however, and regained possession before an oncoming Commodore could steal it.
The Bainbridge native raced up the floor. He readied to launch from midcourt, then looked at the clock to see there were still just over three seconds left.
“I took another dribble and just shot it with confidence,” Crump said.
He fired from well behind the 3-point line and the ball fell through the net as the final horn sounded, giving the Bulldogs the 80-78 win. Crump’s teammates swarmed from the bench — located on the baseline in Memorial Gymnasium — and mobbed their leader, whose eyes welled up with tears. Waiting for Crump after the chaos was Crean, who wrapped him in a hug.
“That’s why you persevere, that’s why you stick with it, that’s why you keep believing, that’s why you don’t give in,” Crean said of his message for Crump. “When it doesn’t seem obvious that everything is good, just keep going. Remind him that that’s a lesson he’ll have the rest of his life.”
Soon, the emotion gave way to pure jubilation. Crump skipped through the tunnels and into the locker room, where his teammates waited to mob him once more and shower him with water.
For one Saturday night in Nashville, Crump was frozen in time as a hero in a moment he’d dreamed about since he was a child.
“I just felt like that was God’s way of saying, ‘Hey, I’ve still got you, I love you. At the end of the day, I’m going to do what’s best for you,’” Wheeler said of Crump’s heroic moment. “I was really happy for him.”
Next Georgia basektball game: The UGA Bulldogs host Arkansas at 6 p.m. Saturday at Stegeman Coliseum. The game will be televised on SEC Network.