No. 12 seed High Point stuns Wisconsin in NCAA Tournament on late Chase Johnston lay-in

PORTLAND – Chase Johnston is a 3-point specialist, the guy you call on if you need an off-balance bomb from long range. The High Point guard, a graduate student, shoots almost exclusively from deep, and coming into the 12th-seeded Panthers’ NCAA Tournament matchup with Wisconsin, he had only attempted four 2-point shots all year and made zero of them.

Now he’s 1-for-5. And it couldn’t have come at a better time.

Johnston’s layup with 11 seconds to go gave High Point an 83-82 win Thursday in the Moda Center, stunning the fifth-seeded Badgers from the Big Ten. High Point coach Flynn Clayman described Johnston’s clutch 2, after he earned so much attention for only making 3s, as “justice.” Now the national focus will turn to how far the fearless Panthers, their fiery coach and their sharpshooter wearing a No. 99 jersey can go.

“When Rob (Martin) threw that (pass) I was like, I gotta put this in the hoop and win this game,” Johnston laughed, assuring the assembled media that no, he didn’t think about backing out and shooting it from beyond the arc.

Martin, who scored a team-high 23 points, wasn’t worried either.

“Chase got a little bit of bounce,” Martin said. “Chase could probably dunk a little bit, y’all don’t know. … I knew Chase was going to make the layup, of course.”

Next up: “The longest 11 seconds of my life,” Johnston said.

High Point called a timeout to set its defense – and sub out Johnston, who at 6-foot-3, probably wasn’t going to do much to deter Wisconsin from getting to the paint. Clayman said it’s just another example of Johnston’s “selfless play,” praising the 26-year-old for his willingness to sit on the bench if it would help his team.

Johnston went to the bench and started praying: “Please Lord, let us shock the world.”

Badgers guard Nick Boyd, who’d gotten to the rim at will in the second half, already had 27 points. He attacked downhill – and had his shot swatted away by High Point’s Owen Aquino.

The Badgers were forced to foul, though High Point’s Cam’Ron Fletcher missed the ensuing free throw, giving Wisconsin a prayer. Wisconsin had to inbound and go the length of the floor in 1.8 seconds, but Andrew Rhode’s pass was off. High Point’s Terry Anderson nabbed the ball for the steal and the win.

Then, chaos. High Point rejoiced, sprinting onto the floor to celebrate, with a couple of players leaping up on top of the courtside media table to posture to fans. Smack in the middle of the celebration was Johnston, the Boca Raton, Florida, native who two years ago thought his basketball career was over after two seasons at Stetson and two at Florida Gulf Coast.

“I had hip surgery and felt the Lord was maybe calling me into ministry,” Johnston said.

Then, he heard something else.

“I was in deep prayer and the Lord was like, I want you to come back and play basketball but I want you to do it for my glory,” Johnston said. He went into the transfer portal and on his visit to High Point met Trae Benham, the player who turned into a March Madness meme last year with help from the school’s student broadcasting team. They became fast friends.

Johnston loved the small Methodist university 80 miles northeast of Charlotte. “Unbelievable campus,” he said. “Have you been? Have you seen pictures?” The Panthers told him they could use his 3-point prowess and started him in 34 of their 35 games his first season. He took 167 treys in 2024-25 and connected on 42.5% of them. He also took 30 2-pointers.

This year, he decided to focus on high-efficiency shots, which, for him, mostly meant at least 22 feet, 1.75 inches from the basket. The decision to (almost) never shoot 2s wasn’t necessarily conscious; he was just trying to space the floor and play to his strengths.

But it came at a cost. As someone who consistently hit only one type of shot, he got stuck on the bench for a stretch in December, recording DNPs in games against Bryant and UNC Asheville. In High Point’s first three January games, he played just six minutes against both Longwood and Charleston Southern.

It would have been easy, he acknowledged, to pout. And he wondered, briefly, about the High Point coaches encouraging him to shoot mostly 3s: “Were they suppressing my game a bit?” (He has, he said, an excellent floater and the old game film to prove it.)

But the aspiring minister reminded himself that Jesus also humbled himself as a servant leader, and that’s what he was being asked to do now. He trusted his time would come.

It did in the Panthers’ final regular season game on Feb. 26 against Presbyterian, when Johnston checked in with just under 11 minutes to play and proceeded to hit four consecutive 3s with his signature unconventional form.

That, he said, was honed in the backyard against older brother Travis. They’d get up “1,500 shots a day, always practicing that quick release.” They filled out brackets each March and imagined hitting game winners. Travis, who is five years older than Chase and played college hoops at Lynn University and St. Thomas, has “always been my role model,” Chase said.

Travis set the school scoring record at Westminster Academy in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Then his little brother came along and broke it, setting a national high school record for made 3s (546) in the process.

Travis was here Thursday to watch Chase break another record, surpassing former Davidson great Stephen Curry in college career 3s. Curry had 414 at Davidson. Chase Johnston now has 415 and counting. Travis watched while decked out in a lavender No. 99 jersey, his 8-month old baby in tow.

Oh, about that jersey number. Chase did wear a more traditional number last year (No. 2, believe it or not). And there’s a reason he changed it.

“I wanted people to ask me about it, wanted another opportunity to share the Gospel,” he said, switching into minister mode, talking fast and referencing Matthew 2:18 and Luke 15, Bible passages in which Jesus talks about a shepherd leaving his flock of 99 sheep to track down the stray.

He has at least one more day, and one more game, to talk about it.

But he’s already thinking beyond basketball, when his career wraps. And he’s got a sermon ready to go, right now, inspired by that critical 2-point shot he hit.

“Oh boy,” Johnston said, his pace accelerating, his eyes lighting up. “I think we gotta talk about, rejoice in weakness, we gotta talk about 2 Corinthians 12, 1-10.”

You’ve probably heard that one. It’s about delighting in “weakness, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties” because when you are weak, you are strong.

And, it turns out, you might just hit a shot you haven’t hit all year for the game winner.