ELON, N.C. – Calm, cool, collected and poised. That's what
Rob Higgins was during the final 3.7 seconds on Monday night.
With the Elon men's basketball team tied at 79 against Presbyterian at Schar Center, freshman Isaac Harrell inbounded the ball to his fifth-year point guard. During Elon's timeout prior to the start of the play, head coach Billy Taylor entrusted the veteran Higgins with the ball.
"I had an option if someone was open to kick it or if I was open to shoot it," Higgins said. "Coach put me in a good position to make a play for our team."
Presbyterian trailed by as many as 19 points in the second half but a furious rally propelled them back into the game. After missing a pair of free throws, Presbyterian came away with an offensive rebound and converted a layup to tie the score. Taylor took the timeout to settle down his team and draw up the final play with Higgins as the ball handler.
"It's easy to have a mentality of, 'Oh, we're just playing for overtime,'" Taylor said. "We have a lot of late-game action. We haven't had opportunities to run all of it, and we've got a lot of different people. We trust [Rob], he's a veteran player and we knew he would either throw to an open teammate or take the shot, whatever the situation called for."
Higgins spent the first four years of his college career at St. Francis Brooklyn College, where he was a 1,000-point scorer and a reliable playmaker. With so much experience in tight games, Higgins was unphased by the precious few seconds left on the clock.
"Before he broke the huddle, Coach said I had four dribbles," Higgins said. "We get down the floor in four seconds or less so it was kind of what we're used to when we're practicing. It's just the pace that we play at. That was kind of an eternity for us."
After getting the ball with a head of steam, Higgins swiftly made his way down the court. Just as Taylor predicted, he had time for exactly four dribbles. Following the fourth, with none of his teammates open, Higgins pulled up and got a deep three-pointer out of his hands with less than a second left on the clock.
As Higgins landed from his jump, he watched anxiously as the ball sailed through the air and then the net to give Elon a dramatic 82-79 victory. Higgins, who said he hadn't made a buzzer-beating shot since his days playing AAU basketball, ran to the student-section as the Phoenix bench emptied to celebrate their hero.
The final shot capped off a 14-point second half for Higgins after he went scoreless in the first. This was the second-straight game for Higgins scoring double-digit points after not reaching the mark in any of Elon's first five contests.
"I just let the game come to me in the first half," Higgins said. "I try to get everybody else involved, let my guys get going, try to run the team and then if the game gets into a position where I've got to make a play or make key buckets, I take those opportunities."
Not only was Higgins' shot the decisive moment in an Elon victory, it garnered national attention as the No. 1 play on Tuesday's ESPN SportsCenter Top 10. This is the second time an Elon play has made the SportsCenter Top 10 this fall, as Scott Vatne's goal for men's soccer against Jacksonville on Aug. 27 checked in at No. 9.
The shot secured the best start for men's basketball since the 2017-18 season. At 4-3, Taylor knows there is a lot for the Phoenix to improve upon but is proud of the team's character and resiliency.
"Our coaching staff and our players know that they can count on that consistency," Taylor said. "Whether we're up 19 or down to a last-second shot, we're going to try to be consistent, talking about the same values in terms of sharing the basketball, playing unselfish, playing with toughness and really loving each other. We saw a lot of those in action today."
'Rising Phoenix' is a new student-led initiative to cover Elon Athletics. Through innovative content creation and storytelling, Elon University students will have the opportunity to highlight the moments, people and events that make an impact, leveraging the athletic department's various web and social media platforms for distribution. Follow Rising Phoenix on Twitter (@EURisingPhoenix) and Instagram (@elonrisingphoenix). Interested in joining this initiative as a content creator (video, graphics, writing, storytelling, or more)? Contact Jacob Kisamore at jkisamore@elon.edu.
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