Lamont Butler hits Buzzer-Beater to send San Diego State to NCAA title game

Lamont Butler practiced moments like this when he was a young kid, firing at the ring at his house, counting down to the buzzer of the imaginary shot clock in his head.

Fast-forward to last summer when Butler, a junior guard for San Diego State, made one-dribble, pull-up jumpers one of his main areas of focus in his game, trying to hit 10 in a row, 15 in a row. make , until the movement and shot were committed to muscle memory.

That’s how these big moments go: years of dreaming, hours and hours of practice, thousands of shots, amounting to a few tense seconds.

It all came together in a flash for Butler on Saturday night in Houston, as he coolly drained a jumper – that same jumper – off the floor from the right as the game clock ticked down to give the Aztecs a 72-71 victory over Florida Atlantic and a place in the men’s basketball national championship game on Monday night.

“I just felt comfortable with that shot and I could use it today to win the game,” said 20-year-old Butler of Moreno Valley, California, who was harassed on the field by his teammates in the middle of a stadium which quickly filled with noise.

The buzzer-beater victory closed the final dramatic chapter of this tournament for the Aztecs, who have taken an unlikely path through the field of 68 teams with an experienced roster focused on defense and tenacious play.

But amidst the hysteria and joy of the celebration, Butler’s thoughts, as so often, quietly turned to his sister, Asasha Hall, who was murdered in her home in March 2022.

Butler keeps a photo of Hall, who was 10 years his senior, as his lock screen wallpaper on his phone. She was his biggest fan, he said.

“She would always be close to the track, the loudest in the gym,” Butler said Saturday night. “She was funny. I had great memories of her. I miss her. I do everything I can to make her happy.”

Butler has played through the pain of that experience for the past year, leaning on coach Brian Dutcher and his teammates for emotional support. His resilience, his ability to compartmentalize his pain, and his dedication to basketball left his teammates in awe.

“He’s a better man than me,” said Matt Bradley, who led the Aztecs on Saturday with 21 points. “I don’t know if I could continue like he did for us. Being a leader on this team, everything he’s done for our team this year. He is the backbone.”

It made sense, then, that as Butler answered question after question from reporters in the San Diego State locker room, his teammates couldn’t hide their delight from him.

“I’m glad he has this moment,” striker Jaedon LeDee said. “He deserves it.”

The moment was created by a missed layup from Florida Atlantic’s Johnell Davis, which would have given the Owls a three-point lead, but instead left the door open for San Diego State, who were up 14 points in the second half. left behind.

The rebound fell into the middle of the Aztecs, Nathan Mensah, who turned it over to Butler who fired down the right sideline and, as he said, was looking for a “downhill” path, as Dutcher had instructed him to do.

But as Butler searched for an opening to the rim, his defender slid over to cut him off. So Butler doubled back, seeing that there were only 2 seconds left on the clock, and performed the dribble pull-up he’d practiced so many times over the past year.

“It’s something I dreamed about since I was a kid,” said Butler, who finished the game with 9 points and 3 assists.

It was the second buzzer-beater of the season for Butler, who spun off a game-winning 3-pointer on the road buzzer against New Mexico in February.

“I told him in Albuquerque to go to the rim as well, and he shot a pull-up 3 and made it,” said Dutcher. “I no longer tell him what to do and just say: Lamont, you understand the ball. And I will live with whatever happens.”

Butler, who attended Riverside Poly High, the alma mater of Reggie and Cheryl Miller, said he was able to make eye contact with his family as he and his teammates left the field.

“You can’t even dream about what just happened,” his father, Lamont Butler Sr., said shortly after the shot went in.

San Diego State and Florida Atlantic were together the gate crashers, the unannounced guests of the NCAA Men’s Final Four. They were the underdogs and Cinderellas, the craziness and unpredictability of this year’s tournament personified. At least that’s how others saw them.

The state of San Diego, number 5, and Florida Atlantic, number 9, saw things differently. The labels, as well-intentioned as they were, have worked less hard since last summer. They introduced the element of fairytale luck, when the players saw only hard work and the pinnacle of their skills on the field.

The teams, each playing with chips on their shoulders, stepped onto the elevated field of NRG Stadium and began to put on a show for the boisterous partisan crowd.

Any pre-game questions about how players from both teams would adapt to shooting in the cavernous environment of the indoor soccer stadium, with the hoops set against unusually panoramic backdrops, were quickly brushed aside. (Some Florida Atlantic players prepared for that circumstance by shooting baskets on the beach near their campus in Boca Raton, Fla.)

Bradley made his first four shots—three of them 3-pointers—to start the game, helping the Aztecs build an early 14–5 lead. It was a promising sign for San Diego State, as Bradley, who averaged 12.5 points per game as the leading scorer this season, had shot just 3 for 17 in the team’s previous two games.

But Florida Atlantic stormed back, receiving scoring contributions from nine players and building a 40-33 halftime lead. The Owls’ ball-sharing ethos was on full display as the players relentlessly went through San Diego State’s vaunted defense, finding high-end looks on one possession after another. The Owls shot 53.6 percent in the first half.

Alijah Martin, a sophomore guard, led Florida Atlantic with 26 points and added 7 rebounds, helping the Owls build a seemingly insurmountable 14-point lead into the second half.

But the Aztecs cleared the deficit and a wide-open game tightened in the dying minutes, with the teams trading baskets and miscues on the stretch. As the tension built, they drew within 1 when LeDee, a Houston native, spiked a jumper at close range with 36 seconds left.

“We’ve always been knocked down, but the most important thing we do is get back up and keep fighting,” Butler said. “We have a lot of maturity in this team. It wasn’t for us.”

Their persistence set the stage for Butler to work his magic, and he did the rest, letting the training, dreams, and emotions of the past year pour out of him in a fateful split second.

Billy Witz contributed reporting from Houston.