Once Nike Sibande’s half-court heave at the buzzer harmlessly careened off the blackboard, Jaylin Walker turned and let out an emphatic roar before being swallowed up by his teammates.
At first glance, Walker looked more like a boxer than a basketball player, with his left eye swollen from an earlier elbow and his right leg bandaged from a cut he had previously sustained.
But that didn’t matter. Walker calmly knocked down two free-throws win 1.3 seconds left to the Flashes a 70-67 win, the margin they’d go on to win by after Sibande’s heave missed the basket.