De’Jon Jackson knew the clock was ticking down. He also knew the play his coach drew up during the timeout in the San Diego the huddle wasn’t there.
“I was I like, whatever,” Jackson said.
Maybe “whatever” will make its way into the playbook after Jackson, the sophomore guard, drove, elevated and knocked down a 15-foot jumper with 1.2 seconds left to send perennial heavyweight Connecticut packing in a 70-69 overtime upset in the NCAA West regional at the St. Pete Times Forum on Friday.
Jackson, who was 1-for-8 before his final shot, found his heroics in the face of 6-foot-9-inch Stanley Robinson and 7-3 center Hasheem Thabeet, who was closing on the play; and also after USD scoring leaders Gyno Pomare (22 points) and Brandon Johnson (18) had fouled out.
More importantly, it gave the 13th-seeded Toreos (22-13), champs of the West Coast Conference, the first NCAA victory in school history and made them the lowest seed to advance in the 2008 tournament field.
“This group found a way to get it done,” coach Bill Grier said.
Fourth-seeded UConn (24-9), which lost for the first time in opening-round play under two-time national championship coach Jim Calhoun, was forced to play most of the way without All-America point guard A.J. Price after the junior and team leader left the game barely nine minutes in with a severe knee injury.
Calhoun refused to use that as an excuse.
“You saw it,” he said. “San Diego simply outplayed us.”
The Huskies trailed by as many as 11 points but rallied behind forward Jeff Adrien (18 points, 12 rebounds) and a bench that outscored SDU’s 21-4 and managed to send the game into overtime at 60-60 after guard Jerome Dyson’s two free throws.
