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Every once in a while a new player, perhaps a G-League rookie with the Valley Suns in Tempe, Arizona, where Paul Jesperson is head coach, will see the shot for the first time on Instagram or some other social medium. Every March, there's a good chance it comes up among his colleagues or friends.
But have any of his players challenged the Merrill High School alumnus to a half-court shot?
"No, I don't think they want to do that," Jesperson, 33, deadpanned.
He insists he didn't practice that particular distance during his days at Northern Iowa, but there was a confidence he harbored when he launched the longest buzzer-beater in NCAA Tournament history and gave Northern Iowa a stunning 75-72 win over Shaka Smart's Texas Longhorns in Oklahoma City on March 18, 2006.
"You don't work directly on half-court shots, but you spend a lot of time in the gym so you get a confidence to be in those situations and take those shots, whether it's a half-court shot, a catch-and-shoot three, a pull-up jumper," Jesperson said. "You start building confidence form the work you put in. The consistency, that work you carry with you through the season, gives you the belief. If I'm in a situation like this, I'd feel good about it. It happened to be my opportunity to hit a shot. I felt good about it."
Isaiah Taylor drove and scored for the Longhorns with 2.7 seconds left in the first-round game to knot the score, but Matt Bohannon – younger brother of former Badgers players Zach and Jason Bohannon – flicked a perfect inbound pass to Jesperson, who eluded two defenders and threw up a bomb at halfcourt that banked in as the buzzer sounded.
"In those situations – low clock, no timeout – you want to catch something going toward their rim so you have some momentum and speed going down there," he said. "Hopefully, it's a deeper outlet. It could have gone to any one of those guys. I just happened to break the space, the ball found me and I was able to get a clean look at the rim."
The NCAA measures the make at 50 feet, one foot longer than a shot by Arkansas's U.S. Reed in a second-round win in 1981. Ten years later, it's one of the most remarkable shots in NCAA history, and Jesperson's alma mater is back in the NCAA Tournament for the first time since that season, with three Wisconsinites in the starting lineup, no less.
"Just the tradition of the NCAA Tournament, big shots that were hit, big games ...," he said. "Just to be part of the tradition of the NCAA Tournament, it's special."
The 2016 season at Northern Iowa was a wild ride. The Panthers knocked off No. 1-ranked North Carolina early in the season, then followed that with a win over No. 5 Iowa State, where Jesperson hit seven three-pointers. But then the Panthers lost six of seven games in Missouri Valley Conference play, only to close the year with wins in 12 of 13.
Then came the MVC tournament, with an overtime win in the semifinal and a buzzer-beater in the final, when Wes Washpun's jumper against Evansville hit off the back of the rim, bounded up in the air and down through the basket.
"It was one of those things where we were all older, we had all played for multiple programs, we had kind of weathered the storm of conference play multiple times in our career so we never got super-down as a group or lost faith in what we were doing," Jesperson said. "We just kind of hit our stride at the right point. We stayed with it, stayed optimistic, and then the end of the conference season into the conference tournament, we really felt like we were playing our best basketball. Got hot at the right time and stayed together."
Jesperson was in his second season with the program, having transferred after two seasons at Virginia, where he was a regular starter for coach and fellow Wisconsinite Tony Bennett.
"I kind of was a young kid who had started and wanted a bigger role so I handled it like an immature 18-, 19-year-old kid at times," Jesperson said. "I also wanted to play a little closer to home. My parents hadn't had a chance to see me play very often, outside of TV games."
Jesperson had gotten to know NIU head coach Ben Jacobson during high-school recruitment, and he was particularly friendly with then-assistant Kyle Green, a former UW-Eau Claire head coach who had at one time employed Jesperson's older brother, Jason, on his staff.
Green's son happens to be A.J. Green, a former NIU player and now a Milwaukee Bucks guard. The elder Green is now an assistant at Iowa State, another college with a healthy Wisconsin pipeline like Virginia and Northern Iowa.
The wild journey didn't stop with the game-winner in the NCAA Tournament. In the second round, playing at the same time as another game that would end in Bronson Koenig's epic buzzer-beater for Wisconsin, Northern Iowa watched a 12-point lead on Texas A&M evaporate with less than 40 seconds left. Texas A&M won in overtime.
"We definitely felt like we had more basketball in us," Jesperson said. "But just that whole three-week stretch, it was a joy to be a part of."
Jesperson played professionally for two seasons, then contacted a litany of NBA teams, looking for entry-level coaching work. He wound up with Atlanta and stayed for six years, lasting through three head coaches.
He spent a year at the University of Oklahoma before joining the Valley Suns, first as an assistant under fellow NIU alumnus (and Wisconsin Herd assistant) John Little. When Little was promoted to the Suns staff, Jesperson was given a chance to take the lead job.
"At its core, it's about development," Jesperson said of the G League. "Guys are at different stages of their careers, so it's about trying to meet these guys where they're at. Some of them, it's rookies just starting out their professional career, some of these guys have been overseas for three years and decide to come back and play a year in the G-League. Some guys are former two-ways and are working to get back to that level. You've got this kind of group of players that are at a bunch of different phases of life, but they're all trying to take the next step in their career."
He still has some time to stay in touch with Jacobson, still at Northern Iowa and leading a team that features starters Leon Bond III (Wauwatosa East), Max Weisbrod (DeForest) and Will Hornseth (De Pere). They'll face St. John's in the first round at 6:20 p.m. CT on March 20.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Northern Iowa's Jesperson revisits 2016 NCAA half-court game-winner
Continue reading...
But have any of his players challenged the Merrill High School alumnus to a half-court shot?
"No, I don't think they want to do that," Jesperson, 33, deadpanned.
He insists he didn't practice that particular distance during his days at Northern Iowa, but there was a confidence he harbored when he launched the longest buzzer-beater in NCAA Tournament history and gave Northern Iowa a stunning 75-72 win over Shaka Smart's Texas Longhorns in Oklahoma City on March 18, 2006.
"You don't work directly on half-court shots, but you spend a lot of time in the gym so you get a confidence to be in those situations and take those shots, whether it's a half-court shot, a catch-and-shoot three, a pull-up jumper," Jesperson said. "You start building confidence form the work you put in. The consistency, that work you carry with you through the season, gives you the belief. If I'm in a situation like this, I'd feel good about it. It happened to be my opportunity to hit a shot. I felt good about it."
Isaiah Taylor drove and scored for the Longhorns with 2.7 seconds left in the first-round game to knot the score, but Matt Bohannon – younger brother of former Badgers players Zach and Jason Bohannon – flicked a perfect inbound pass to Jesperson, who eluded two defenders and threw up a bomb at halfcourt that banked in as the buzzer sounded.
"In those situations – low clock, no timeout – you want to catch something going toward their rim so you have some momentum and speed going down there," he said. "Hopefully, it's a deeper outlet. It could have gone to any one of those guys. I just happened to break the space, the ball found me and I was able to get a clean look at the rim."
The NCAA measures the make at 50 feet, one foot longer than a shot by Arkansas's U.S. Reed in a second-round win in 1981. Ten years later, it's one of the most remarkable shots in NCAA history, and Jesperson's alma mater is back in the NCAA Tournament for the first time since that season, with three Wisconsinites in the starting lineup, no less.
"Just the tradition of the NCAA Tournament, big shots that were hit, big games ...," he said. "Just to be part of the tradition of the NCAA Tournament, it's special."
A season for the ages at Northern Iowa
The 2016 season at Northern Iowa was a wild ride. The Panthers knocked off No. 1-ranked North Carolina early in the season, then followed that with a win over No. 5 Iowa State, where Jesperson hit seven three-pointers. But then the Panthers lost six of seven games in Missouri Valley Conference play, only to close the year with wins in 12 of 13.
Then came the MVC tournament, with an overtime win in the semifinal and a buzzer-beater in the final, when Wes Washpun's jumper against Evansville hit off the back of the rim, bounded up in the air and down through the basket.
"It was one of those things where we were all older, we had all played for multiple programs, we had kind of weathered the storm of conference play multiple times in our career so we never got super-down as a group or lost faith in what we were doing," Jesperson said. "We just kind of hit our stride at the right point. We stayed with it, stayed optimistic, and then the end of the conference season into the conference tournament, we really felt like we were playing our best basketball. Got hot at the right time and stayed together."
Jesperson was in his second season with the program, having transferred after two seasons at Virginia, where he was a regular starter for coach and fellow Wisconsinite Tony Bennett.
"I kind of was a young kid who had started and wanted a bigger role so I handled it like an immature 18-, 19-year-old kid at times," Jesperson said. "I also wanted to play a little closer to home. My parents hadn't had a chance to see me play very often, outside of TV games."
Jesperson had gotten to know NIU head coach Ben Jacobson during high-school recruitment, and he was particularly friendly with then-assistant Kyle Green, a former UW-Eau Claire head coach who had at one time employed Jesperson's older brother, Jason, on his staff.
Green's son happens to be A.J. Green, a former NIU player and now a Milwaukee Bucks guard. The elder Green is now an assistant at Iowa State, another college with a healthy Wisconsin pipeline like Virginia and Northern Iowa.
The wild journey didn't stop with the game-winner in the NCAA Tournament. In the second round, playing at the same time as another game that would end in Bronson Koenig's epic buzzer-beater for Wisconsin, Northern Iowa watched a 12-point lead on Texas A&M evaporate with less than 40 seconds left. Texas A&M won in overtime.
"We definitely felt like we had more basketball in us," Jesperson said. "But just that whole three-week stretch, it was a joy to be a part of."
Jesperson finds his way to head coaching role
Jesperson played professionally for two seasons, then contacted a litany of NBA teams, looking for entry-level coaching work. He wound up with Atlanta and stayed for six years, lasting through three head coaches.
He spent a year at the University of Oklahoma before joining the Valley Suns, first as an assistant under fellow NIU alumnus (and Wisconsin Herd assistant) John Little. When Little was promoted to the Suns staff, Jesperson was given a chance to take the lead job.
"At its core, it's about development," Jesperson said of the G League. "Guys are at different stages of their careers, so it's about trying to meet these guys where they're at. Some of them, it's rookies just starting out their professional career, some of these guys have been overseas for three years and decide to come back and play a year in the G-League. Some guys are former two-ways and are working to get back to that level. You've got this kind of group of players that are at a bunch of different phases of life, but they're all trying to take the next step in their career."
He still has some time to stay in touch with Jacobson, still at Northern Iowa and leading a team that features starters Leon Bond III (Wauwatosa East), Max Weisbrod (DeForest) and Will Hornseth (De Pere). They'll face St. John's in the first round at 6:20 p.m. CT on March 20.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Northern Iowa's Jesperson revisits 2016 NCAA half-court game-winner
Continue reading...
