ASHEVILLE, N.C. — A shot that will live forever. Graduate guard David Jean-Baptiste buried a highly-contested 30-foot jump shot to lift the Chattanooga Mocs men’s basketball team to the 2022 Southern Conference title and a spot in the NCAA Tournament, downing No. 2 Furman 64-63 in overtime on Monday evening inside Harrah’s Cherokee Center.
Chattanooga improves to 27-7 overall this season and earns a spot in the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2016. The Mocs have won their 12th SoCon Tournament title in school history. Furman fell to 22-12 and will await a spot in postseason play.
A game that started slow, finished in a fashion that will be remembered forever in school history. After Furman grabbed a 68-66 lead with just 4.0 seconds left in overtime, Jean-Baptiste took the inbound, dribbled left, and fired a contested three from the sponsor logo.
That shot found nothing but the bottom of the net and sent the Harrah’s Cherokee Center, the Scenic City and college basketball watchers across the country into a frenzy. The highlight and moment peaked as the No. 1 trending topic on social media waves in the United States.
“Just unbelievable. I always talk about this book that I’m going to write when this is all said and done, and the longest chapter will be titled, ‘DJB III,’” said head coach Lamont Paris.
“It’s surreal what has transpired, the good, the bad, the ugly, we’ve been all over the place as a team, and for it to come down to that, I literally am now committed to writing that book and telling that story.”
Malachi Smith was named the Most Outstanding Player for the tournament while Jean-Baptiste (All-Tournament), Silvio De Sousa (All-Tournament) and Grant Ledford (Pinnacle – Academic) all cleaned up postseason tournament awards.
Jean-Baptiste, when asked to chime in on the life-changing moment, “It was surreal. I knew I had four seconds left, tried to put myself in the best position possible just to get the shot up, and it felt like it took forever for the ball to reach the basket, but once I saw it hit the net, I couldn’t feel no more after that. It was unbelievable.”