Syndication: The Montgomery Advertiser
Jake Crandall/ Advertiser

KeShawn Murphy's 3-point prayer to lift Auburn to a 91-90 buzzer-beating win Tuesday night over Texas A&M found nothing but the net. The Jungle erupted in pandemonium. Within seconds, his Tigers teammates enveloped him on the court in the most sacred of sports celebrations: that of the he just called game variety. 

Or so they thought. 

After a lengthy official review, the heroic heave was waved off. Texas A&M escaped with a 90-88 road win -- or, from another more popular perspective inside the building, Auburn was stripped of an epic buzzer-beater -- after the shot was deemed to have launched just after the final horn. 

Pandemonium ensued again in The Jungle after the shot that sunk the Aggies was stripped away. Officials had to be escorted by police back to the locker room area for their safety while fans in the arena heaved trash and drinks -- on the floor, at officials -- in general disgust and dejection. An elderly man can be seen amid the chaos tossing a cup of water over his shoulder at an official like he'd just finished studying Blake Griffin's teachings. Look closely at the middle of your screen at the two-second mark below. 

Which begs, of course, the obvious question: What the heck just happened? 

And more to the point: Did Auburn just lose a game it actually won? My findings are below.

🔎 Investigating the shot

With 0.6 seconds remaining on the game clock, Auburn forward Elyjah Freeman leaned right from the baseline and tossed a perfectly-placed missile to Murphy -- who walked right into the game-winner-that-wasn't. The shot was initially counted in real-time but only later waved off after video review.

Take a look below and it's almost impossible to distinguish from the original television angle if the buzzer sounded before Murphy launched. 

The call is so close that even a different angle with a better view of both Murphy and the game clock doesn't obviously lead to a conclusion. Watch the video below. Because it was a bang-bang play, I believe the initial call to count the basket was the right one. 

A story in four parts

I slowed down the video above to 2% on iMovie and ran a loop of the final 0.2 seconds over, and over, and over. I presume the officials in the building had that angle -- or an angle very similar to that one, though we do not know -- when making their final call. Because they ultimately got the call right even if painstaking measures clearly had to be taken (and likely under duress, to boot).

Here's the story of the shot in four parts broken down frame-by-frame. 

Part 1: 📸

First, you can clearly see 0.1 seconds remaining on both the shot clock (above the backboard) and the scoreboard (far left of your screen.) The shot clock above the backboard is the official clock, and as you will see shortly, that's critical to the final call. Clear and obvious here is the ball still in Murphy's hand.

1.png

Parts 2 & 3 📸

Parts two and three of this story are where things go sideways. I'm sharing two photos of virtually the same moment in time because they are so close together. The official clock (again, above the backboard on the right side of the photo below) is not in sync with the scoreboard inside the building, likely off by perhaps as small as a centisecond. You can see the official clock strikes 0.0, while the scoreboard still has 0.1 seconds remaining. In the first photo below it appears Murphy has not fully released the ball.

3.png

This moment -- and again, likely within hundredths of a second of the one above -- is certainly less clear but still evident upon close inspection. You can see again the official clock above the backboard is 0.0 and the scoreboard to the left side of the photo has 0.1 seconds remaining. You can also see Murphy is still in contact with the ball.

2.png

Part 4 📸

The fourth and final shot is the most inconsequential. Below you can see the ball is clearly off, but the clock on both the scoreboard and the shot clock above the backboard are zeroed out. 

4.png

📽️

And here's one more look at that tremendous baseline angle from Johnny Congdon of ABC 33/40 News in Birmingham slowed down.

The verdict

The initial call that the basket counted was the correct call. Waving off the basket after further review was also correct, though reversing the initial decision to count it -- given how close it was -- is surprising. 

Auburn coach Steven Pearl, perhaps unsurprisingly, was equally as surprised about the decision to take the shot off the board. He could be seen after the game holding an iPad and pleading his case with one official. 

"I don't have a clear understanding of what their reasoning behind what they were going off of, so we're going to gather more information and hopefully we can kind of elaborate on it," he said. "But just from the angles that I saw, it looked like the ball was out of his hands on the red light on the scoreboard that we were looking at. But I would imagine they had a different angle that they were looking at and they determined that, you know, the ball wasn't out of his hands."

Pearl added in his presser that there was no communication after the call was made and that he was still seeking further clarification. He returned to the court after his press conference and seemingly was still seeking those answers.

"They just said it was no good and ran off the floor," Pearl added. "I probably wouldn't want to talk to me in that moment anyway, so I get why they'd run away from me. But just from the angles that I saw, it looked like it was off his fingers. But I don't have all the same angles they have. I'm just looking at an iPad, and on the clock it says 0.2. But obviously, like -- on the floor I'm like, 'We just won the game, wow' -- so to go from that to sure enough .... they made a decision that it was on his fingertips. It's devastating."