Hamilton Watches And Learns Connecticut Star Repeats What He Saw On TV

They watched it together. They saw West Virginia’s buzzer-beater knock Cincinnati out of the NCAA Tournament Saturday, and Richard Hamilton and Khalid El-Amin talked about it for days.

“Never in my life,” Hamilton, Connecticut’s 6-foot-7-inch sophomore forward, told El-Amin, UConn’s freshman point guard, “have I ever made a buzzer-beater.”

He has now.

Hamilton’s frantic fall-away at the buzzer Thursday night gave UConn a 75-74 victory over Washington and sent the Big East champion into Saturday night’s NCAA East Regional final against No. 1 North Carolina, a 73-58 winner over Michigan State.

UConn (32-4) flirted with disaster all night as Washington (20-10) played far tougher than its No. 11 seeding would indicate.

When guard Donald Watts sank a 3-pointer with 33.2 seconds remaining to give Washington a 74-73 lead, UConn seemed destined to add this to its litany of disappointments, another near miss for a team still seeking its first Final Four berth.

But on this evening at Greensboro Coliseum, the No. 2 seed had luck as well as skill on its side.

After calling a timeout following Watts’ shot, UConn went into its offense. It was going to be all or nothing for both sets of Huskies, who had battled on even terms for the entire game, although UConn had maintained a slight edge until Watts, the son of former NBA star Slick Watts, canned his long-range jumper.

“We looked like most teams do when they play us,” said UConn coach Jim Calhoun. “We were out of gas, and I don’t know why. I wanted to take the last shot because I didn’t think we had enough energy to play defense at the end.”

Good point. UConn used it all in the final 20 seconds. The designed play was one the Huskies had used hundreds of times.

El-Amin drove down the right side of the lane.

“I was going to penetrate and dump it off to Jake (Voskuhl),” said El-Amin, who did just that.

But with the clock under 10 seconds, the opportunities were running out as quickly as the time.

Voskuhl’s first attempt was no good. Hamilton grabbed the offensive rebound and put it up. The shot was off line and rolled off the rim. “I think five different guys touched it,” said Calhoun, who wasn’t that far off, as Kevin Freeman, Voskuhl, and El-Amin got touches. After all that, the ball went back to Hamilton in the lane.

Somehow that seemed fitting. The Big East’s player of the year had carried the Huskies for much of the season. But as tournament time approached, Hamilton became mired in a shooting slump of monumental proportions.

Nothing seemed to go in. But gradually over the last few games, Hamilton came out of it.

Thursday night, he made 8 of 16 shots and scored 22 points to lead UConn. On the final play, he made one last desperate grab.

“I just got the ball and lined it up and put it back up,” said Hamilton.

“There were 1.8 seconds left,” said El-Amin. “I said, ‘Shoot it.’ I knew it was going in from the time it left his hand.”

It was a wild, crazy, wonderful finish if you were a Connecticut player, and simply wild and crazy if you were a Washington player.

“It was a classic basketball game,” UW coach Bob Bender admitted afterward.

Washington came agonizingly close to an upset.

“I got my hand on it,” Washington center Todd MacCulloch said. “I wasn’t able to get control of the ball. I was trying to tip it as far as I could. Every time that happened, it seemed to go to one of their players.”

The one that mattered was Hamilton, and soon there he was, underneath a pile of his teammates, all celebrating the game-winning shot.

“We didn’t want our season to end,” Calhoun said.

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: TODAY ON TV Midwest 4:30 p.m.: Purdue (28-7) vs. Stanford (28-4), CBS South 6:50 p.m.: Kentucky (31-4) vs. UCLA (24-8), CBS