Kyle Guy Bails Out Ty Jerome, Wahoos in Wild Final Four Finish

Everything was going well for Virginia when Ty Jerome buried a three-ball with 5:24 remaining in the second half. The shot put Virginia up 57-47 and it seemed like they were going to cruise to an easy win over Auburn. Then, before you knew it, Auburn had officially clawed their way back and Virginia was left panicking.

Virginia went scoreless for over three minutes, leaving the door open for the underdog Tigers. With less than two minutes remaining, a three from Bryce Brown put Auburn ahead 59-57 and the Hoos, well Ty Jerome, started to crumble. Jerome, on back-to-back possessions, took ridiculously bad three-point shots. Like, so bad you probably wouldn’t shoot them playing one-on-one in your driveway. Luckily, though, his teammate, Kyle Guy, was there to bail him out and you’ll probably hear little about Jerome’s poor late-game decision making.

Down 61-57 now, Guy hit a huge three with nine seconds remaining to cut Auburn’s lead to one. Had he missed, the game was almost certainly over. Then after one converted free throw from Auburn, there was a missed double-dribble on Jerome (which you’ve probably heard about by now) that led to a three-point attempt by Guy with 1.5 seconds remaining — which he was fouled on. Three made free throws later, Virginia went up 63-62 and it was time to celebrate. Virginia was officially headed to the NCAA Championship.

Texas Tech, in the other Final Four game immediately after, beat Michigan State to set up a Texas Tech-Virginia matchup for all the marbles.

Not many folks would have predicted that at the beginning of the season, am I right?