Rotnei Clarke may not have the hot hand against Marquette on Monday night but he kept on shooting. His teammates are glad that he did. With the game on the line, Butler's senior guard came through.
With eight seconds remaining in the first round game of the Maui Classic, Marquette's Junior Cadougan missed a free throw that would have given the Golden Eagles a three-point lead. Clarke got the outlet pass on the right side and was double-teamed. After getting forced to the center of the court, the transfer out of Arkansas switched directions back to his right and threw up a one-handed prayer from approximately 30 feet.
Swish!
The ball fell through as Clarke fell on his back leaving. Once the ball fell through the net, he found himself at the bottom of a pile of Bulldogs.
ESPN announcers Dave O’Brien and Jimmy Dykes were just as stunned as the fans and Clarke's teammates, with Dykes yelling out "Are you kidding me?"
Clarke had attempted 13 3-pointers up until that point and only made three of them. But the last one will be the only shot that will be remembered, and Clarke didn't even see it go in.
"I don't even know what happened," Clarke said after the game, via USA Today. "Threw it up, falling away, and it went in."
Coming off a blowout loss to Xavier in which Butler went 4-18 from long range and just 19-52 from the field, head coach Brad Stevens' club needed a bounce back win. The Bulldogs were actually worse from behind the arc against Marquette, but shot a higher percentage from the field and squeaked out the win.
When asked about that last shot, Stevens didn't have much to say.
"I've been working on that one with him," he said, per The Dagger.