Illinois 13-Year-Old Makes Full Court Buzzer Beater Shot
An eighth-grade student is walking around his school as a new legend after his end-of-game buzzer-beater shot from across the court brought the school to a win.
13-year-old Cooper Thorson won the game for his team, from Milton Pope Elementary (a little over half an hour from Chicago), sinking a full-court one-handed shot and bringing the final score to 34-32.
His coach, Dakota Jones, shared video from the game to Twitter, asking his followers to share the video.
"This is ESPN worthy and these kids deserve it!" Jones wrote with the video he shared Tuesday night. By Wednesday, Cooper's shot had made ESPN's Top 10.
Milton Pope was down just 32-31 with 3.1 seconds remaining and Marseilles was at the free-throw line. After they missed their shot, Thorson pulled the rebound, took a dribble to the left, leaped, and tossed that left-handed scoop shot.
“I wasn’t really expecting it, that (rebound) just came my way,” Thorson told Pedelty. “I felt blessed, it just came right to me. And when I shot that … I did not think I was gonna make it, and it just went in, and I fell to the ground out of excitement.”