Elgin beats Streamwood at buzzer

As game-winning shots go, Elgin junior Kory Brown’s off-balance putback to beat Streamwood at the buzzer on Tuesday ranks right up there on the degree-of-difficulty scale.

The top-seeded Maroons escaped with a 60-58 victory over the fourth-seeded Sabres in a Class 4A Larkin regional semifinal, thanks to Brown’s heroic airborne version of Twister.

With the scored tied at 58, Elgin inbounded the ball after a timeout with 20 seconds remaining, expecting to face a man-to-man defense. However, the Sabres showed a 2-3 zone instead.

“When they came out in zone, it took us a few seconds to figure out what we wanted to do,” Elgin coach Mike Sitter said.

Elgin senior Jordan Dean passed the ball to sophomore Arie Williams on the left edge of the 3-point arc with six seconds left. He took a contested 3-pointer that glanced off the back of the rim and came straight down into the hands of Brown, who had raced from the top of the key looking for a rebound.

While in midair, Brown caught the ball at his waist, raised it overhead and “flicked” it sideways with his right hand as he was gliding to the left of the basket. The ball bounced twice on the rim as the buzzer sounded before it dropped in for the winning 2 points.

Brown raced to the free throw line and pumped both fists in celebration as he was mobbed by teammates and the onrushing Elgin student section. The Sabres dropped to the floor in anguish.

“I just jumped and the ball ended up dropping right in my hands,” said Brown whose game-high 17 points matched teammate Jordan Dean. “I didn’t have enough time to catch it and go back up, so I glanced up at the basket and just flicked it right up over my head. It ended up bouncing on the back of the rim a couple of times and ended up bouncing in. What can I say?

“It was like shooting from the opposite end of the court. It was one of those miracle shots that went our way so we could just take the game right then.”

Brown’s game-winner spoiled a tremendous, gutty effort by Streamwood (9-19), which had beaten Elgin 52-50 four days earlier to even the season series.

“It hurts, especially on a shot like that,” said Streamwood point guard Jerrold Ofiana (8 points, 5 assists). “It just fell in and that was the game.”

The Sabres bolted to a 6-0 lead on 3-pointers by Adam Acevedo (12 points, 7 rebounds) and Tim Cohen (6 points) and dominated the first half overall. They hit 14-of-28 first-half shots to take a 30-21 lead at intermission.

Six-foot-7 center Bobby Post scored 7 of his team-high 15 points in the third quarter as Streamwood built its lead to 15 points (40-25) with 5:15 left in the game.

But Elgin’s defense began to ignite its offense. The Maroons capitalized on 8 Streamwood turnovers in the third quarter to ignite a 23-8 run that would eventually knot the score at 48-48 on a putback by Dean, who scored 10 his 17 points during the push to tie the game.

“I knew I had to pick it up sometime or my career was going to be over,” Dean said.

The lead changed hands three times until Acevedo sank a 3-pointer over Brown to tie the game 58-58 with 32 seconds left, setting the stage for Brown’s putback winner.

“It’s pretty neat that there are a bunch of sobbing guys in there, and that doesn’t happen too often,” Streamwood coach Tim Jones said as he motioned to the locker room. “They were a pretty close-knit group. I just wish I had some of those guys again for another year. If we had played like the last couple of weeks the whole year, things might have been different.

“We played a (heck) of a game tonight. We really had them on the ropes. I know we had a few turnovers in the second half and a few missed free throws, but we stuck in there. Guy makes a hell of a tip-in to win the game.”

Elgin (21-5) advances to Friday’s 7:30 p.m. championship game to face the winner of tonight’s semifinal between No. 2 Jacobs (16-12) and No. 3 Dundee-Crown (12-13)

“I feel bad because we got outplayed,” Sitter said. “On the whole, I told Tim that they outplayed us for the second straight game.

“We had better learn from that or it’s going to be a very short postseason for us.”