Sunday’s matchup between Iowa State and Creighton was one of the more intriguing games of the weekend that you didn’t know was happening.
3-0 Creighton was heading into Ames to take a surprising 3-0 Iowa State team led by brand new head coach Fred Hoiberg. Why did Iowa State need a new head coach? Because Gregg McDermott had left the Cyclones to take the head coaching gig that opened up at Creighton when Dana Altman went to Oregon.
Things only got more interesting when the game ended.
Iowa State’s 6'11" center Jamie Vanderbeken hit a 40 footer at the buzzer to win the game.
Its tough to tell from the video, but Vanderbeken didn’t get the shot off. Take a look at this picture.
But since this game wasn’t televised anywhere, there was no monitor available for the refs to look at. The ruling on the court stood. Iowa State was going home a winner, and Creighton took a loss that could end up being damaging for a team that could wind up in bubble contention come March.
To his credit, McDermott handled it in the classiest way possible.
“There’s no monitor, so we’ll never know. Actually we will know, because they counted it,” McDermott said. “We had as good an officiating crew as you could ask for. If they say it counted, it counted.”
Rob Dauster is the editor of the college basketball website Ballin’ is a Habit. You can find him on twitter @ballinisahabit.