BYU’s Nate Austin just played the best 30 seconds of defense we’ve seen in college basketball this season. The senior center made two game-changing blocks in crunch time to help the Cougars upset Gonzaga on its home floor, 69-68, on Thursday night.
BYU’s Nate Austin made two game-saving blocks to upset Gonzaga
The Cougars moved to 13-5 on the season with a big win over Gonzaga.
Ricky O'Donnell has covered basketball at all levels for more than a decade at SB Nation. He’s currently the Associate Director of Programming.
The ending of this game was wild. Gonzaga’s Eric McClellan drove to the hole with 30 seconds left and the ‘Zags trailing by two, but Austin erased the shot:
After BYU missed a free throw on the other end, Gonzaga got the ball back and went to star forward Kyle Wiltjer. Wiltjer was phenomenal on the night, scoring 35 points and grabbing 10 rebounds, and he drew a foul with a chance to tie the game with eight seconds left.
Wiltjer made the first free throw but missed the second, and BYU recovered the rebound. But while BYU was grabbing that rebound, the refs called Kyle Collinsworth for traveling and that gave Gonzaga another chance:
The ball went back to Wiltjer, who drove into the heart of the BYU defense for the game’s decisive bucket. Only one problem: Austin was back there again to send the ball away and give the Cougars the victory:
This is Gonzaga’s third home loss already this season, which is just a strange sentence to type. Also strange? Austin only had nine blocks in 17 games coming into Thursday night.
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