Dillard beats Columbia in state semifinals after wild, controversial buzzer-beater in OT
Every coach on the Dillard sideline whirled his arms frantically as the clock ticked away in overtime of the Class 6A semifinals.
The Panthers trailed Lake City Columbia by two points and Ivan Reynolds was pacing at the top of the key, probing for some sort of driving lane to potentially tie the score. With eight seconds to go, the star point guard finally made his move.
Columbia cut off Reynolds’ initial driving lane, so he handed the ball off to Chandler Mack at the top of the key. The guard pinged a pass to the right corner, where Dimitri Bernot fumbled the ball out of bounds. Asonaba Bromley stretched his right arm as far as it would reach and threw it back toward the basket where Reynolds was standing.
The senior caught the ball on the right block, spun to his right and threw up a hook shot as the buzzer sounded. The referees conferred to discuss the bang-bang decision and determined the shot got off in time. Four minutes later, Dillard headed back to the state championship with a frantic 71-66 win in double overtime.
“Not how you draw it up,” Dillard coach Darryl Burrows said as he sat down for his postgame news conference at the RP Funding Center, “I’ll tell you that.”
It was as close as a decisive call could have been for the officials. Burrows was certain Reynolds got the shot off in time to tie the score at 62. Tigers coach Steve Faulkner was positive he didn’t. Blurry videos shared on the sidelines and across social media seemed to show the ball still on Reynolds’ fingertips as time expired, although they were too pixelated to be obviously conclusive one way or the other, and it didn’t matter anyway.
A broken play turned into one of the craziest sequences of the entire season.
“It was a little lucky, but our connection and our chemistry ...” Bromley said before Burrows and Reynolds interjected.
“I’m hoping he was looking for him,” Burrows said.
“We locked eyes, I feel like,” Reynolds added.
The Panthers (24-7) had to play the second overtime without star post player Jalen Haynes, who fouled out with 20.2 seconds left in the first overtime after scoring 17 points and pulling down 14 rebounds, and Bromley came alive in his absence. The wing, who had two points in the first 36 minutes, scored five in the final four-minute period and Dillard closed the game on a 7-0 run to reach the state-title game for the second season in a row.
The Panthers will meet either Bartow in the 6A final Saturday at 5:30 p.m. as Dillard will try to match Blanche Ely’s Broward County record with an eighth state championship.
“We’ve been through that. We traveled a little bit this year trying to get them ready hopefully for instances such as this,” Burrows said. “We’ve been in those tight ballgames where now you’ve really got to hone in on what you do.”
The Panthers spent most of Thursday playing from behind. Columbia (28-3) jumped out to a 19-6 lead by starting 5 of 6 from three-point range, but Reynolds hit a buzzer-beater to end the first quarter, too, drilling a 35-footer to cut the Tigers’ lead to 21-16. Dillard led 4-2, then didn’t lead again until the third quarter when it finally went ahead 36-35 at the midpoint of the period.
In the final 12 minutes of regulation, the lead changed hands four times and the score was tied up four more times. The Panthers turned the ball over three times in the final 31 seconds with the score tied 44-44, and Columbia never took advantage. For the second straight year, Dillard went to overtime in a state semifinal.
Again, the Panthers spent the period clawing back and Haynes kept them alive, scoring on back-to-back possessions to cut the Tigers’ lead to 61-60 with 22.1 seconds left. Dillard turned on the press and Haynes committed his fifth foul flying in for a steal attempt.
With 20.2 seconds left, Columbia frontcourt player Marcus Peterson went 1 for 2 at the free-throw line to keep the Panthers’ in range to force overtime with Reynolds’ desperation shot.
“I saw everyone else was denied, and I looked up at the clock and I saw [Bromley] go for it,” Reynolds said. “I came to it and I realized I had no time to put it down, so I shot it.”
Reynolds finished with 14 points, eight rebounds and four assists, but only scored one point in the last overtime period. Tigers guard Kenney Gaines had a final chance to tie the score with 23.1 seconds left before his three-pointer went awry.
For the ninth time in history, Dillard will play for a Florida High School Athletic Association championship after maybe its craziest semifinal win ever.
This story was originally published March 5, 2020 at 9:10 PM.
