An oral history of Tyler Ennis’ 2014 buzzer-beater against Pitt

J

im Boeheim was back in the Petersen Events Center, the home floor of the Pittsburgh men’s basketball team, on Jan. 9. Not as a coach, but as a color commentator for the ACC Network — his new gig since retiring from Syracuse.

Boeheim was in the “Oakland Zoo” to call a game between Pitt and Duke with his partners Wes Durham and Cory Alexander. But as Boeheim took his seat near midcourt in preparation to call the game, he happened to be sitting next to a season ticket holder who wanted to bring up the past.

The Pittsburgh fan brought up Tyler Ennis’ halfcourt buzzer-beater shot from nearly a decade ago.

“The season ticket holder was sitting right there,” Boeheim said. “He said, ‘I remember that shot!” And I said, ‘I know you do!’”

It wasn’t that hard for Boeheim to remember the shot, considering he honestly thought it was a shot a player makes once out of 100 attempts. Ennis’ heroics helped keep SU — the No. 1 team in the nation at that time — undefeated on Feb. 12, 2014.

The game and its ending highlighted a truly budding rivalry for the two teams who left the Big East together for the Atlantic Coast Conference. During this time, both Pitt and Syracuse were usually ranked and had physical, low scoring battles to boot. For some on SU, beating the Panthers meant the most to them, especially on their hostile home floor.

The make from Ennis went down as one of the greatest shots in Syracuse basketball history and reflected a time when the two rivals were vying for the top of college basketball polls. The game was the last time both schools faced each other as ranked teams.

Here is the story of that night from the players, coaches, team employees and media members who witnessed it. All titles and positions are from the 2013-14 season.

The rivalry

After he led Pitt to an Elite Eight appearance, Ben Howland left to coach at UCLA, ushering in the Jamie Dixon era in the Steel City. This immediately changed the dynamics of the rivalry between the Orange and Panthers. From 2003-2013, Syracuse went a combined 3-10 against Pittsburgh and lost eight straight to Pitt at one point. The games featured a lot of physical, low-scoring results, with SU averaging 64 points per contest during this decade. By the 2013-14 season, players and coaches lived for the rivalry.

Trevor Cooney, Syracuse guard: The Pittsburgh rivalry meant the most to me. That was a team that I definitely enjoyed playing.

James Robinson, Pittsburgh guard: It was always like grind-it-out, tough, old Big East basketball.

Nolan Hart, Syracuse walk-on: I felt like our biggest rival was Pitt just because those games just got a little bit chippier. Their fans and our fans just really didn’t like each other.

Jamie Dixon, Pittsburgh head coach: It kind of built up over time. Obviously, we were the upstarts, they were the power in the conference. I got there in 1999. They were by far the best team or amongst the best. But I was there as the associate coach for four years, and then we got better.

Jim Boeheim, Syracuse head coach: The Big East was funny, we had different rivals. I mean, Georgetown was always our No. 1 rival. But we had a series of stretches with Pittsburgh.

Hart: I’m not sure if it was quite as much like that with Georgetown. I’m not sure why. But if you probably ask a lot of people on those teams in the 2010s or I guess the early 2010s. Even now, I want to say maybe Duke is our biggest rival. I would say it’s still us and Pitt. We don’t really like each other.

Dixon: We played each other twice, because of (the Big East Divisions). In those couple of years, we weren’t very good. (In) the year we got good (2003-04) was because they weren’t quite as good and it helped us (that) our division wasn’t very weak. So that’s kind of where it started. I think those couple of games against each other, and then we moved ahead. And then you know, obviously, we had success there.

The season

The 2013-14 season marked a new stage in the history between Syracuse and Pittsburgh. Both teams moved to the ACC, as the rivalry was maintained.

Dixon: I think the fans were (feeling) kind of bittersweet to some degree…My job was to build up basketball so that we knew when the inevitable would come that we would be in position to be taken by one of the power five (conferences)…We had to be the best we could be so we wouldn’t be left behind.

Dixon’s Panthers had lost star center Steven Adams to the NBA, but still retained talent from the year before like James Robinson, Lamar Patterson and Talib Zanna. Pittsburgh kept a strong conference record by maintaining its identity that had kept it at the top of the Big East and the national polls for years.

Dixon: We were a little bit more skilled, not as big. We were bigger in previous years…Talib (Zanna) led the ACC in rebounding but he’s somewhat of an undersized five man and Lamar (Patterson) was our three. So it wasn’t really a big, athletic team. But more skilled probably than then we had, and it wasn’t our best defensive team.

Mike Waters, Syracuse Post-Standard beat writer: (Pitt) wanted to make it a defensive battle, a rock fight or whatever you wanted to call it. A mud wrestling contest. They were happy when the game was in the 50s.

Boeheim: They were just good defensively, they had a lot of really physical, tough kids.

Stephen Bailey, The Daily Orange beat writer: Jamie Dixon went up against the zone maybe not about as well as anyone but he certainly had his fair share of success against it; getting the ball in the high post, working the baseline, kickout 3s. And I think that that kind of contributed to I think the intensity of some of those games.

Syracuse, meanwhile, was amid an undefeated season. But the Orange were not a dominant team. Ten of their first 23 wins came by 10 points or less. SU and Pitt already had a contest in January that the former won by just five points in the Dome.

Baye Moussa Keita, Syracuse center (The Daily Orange, March 2014): Every game we played really close.

Boeheim: It was just a good team. Maybe not a great team, but it was a really good team.

Gerry McNamara, Syracuse assistant coach: They were really talented. Number one, they were really good players. But they had that will, the drive to make an extra play. They were really good defensively, they were really good late in games defensively, especially.

Pete Moore, Syracuse sports information director: There were a number of games even before the Pitt game where you thought tonight might be the night where we can’t go right now. But somehow they kept it going.

Boeheim: It was just a team that figured out how to win those games. There were just a lot of good players. Jerami Grant was a young player but he was good.

Waters: That team played so well in the final minutes of so many games that they were able to run that season opening win streak to top out at 25.

The point guard

The Orange were also led by a point guard of high regard. Ennis came to SU as a five-star recruit from Brampton, Ontario, and had already impressed his coaches. Ennis averaged 12.9 points per game and a team-high 5.5 assists per game, while shooting 41% from the field. In the first matchup against Pittsburgh, he scored 16 points in a 59-54 victory.

Boeheim: In fact, in the first Pittsburgh game in Syracuse, he made three straight layups that were hard to get against Pittsburgh, because they’re so good defensively. (He went) right through everybody. And we shouldn’t really have won the game.

Adrian Autry, Syracuse assistant coach: Since I’ve been here on staff, he was probably clearly one of the great basketball minds at a young age. He had a great poise, he had a great vision.

Tyler Ennis, Syracuse guard (The Daily Orange, November 2013): I know a lot of people are expecting a big year, expecting a lot but that comes with what I wanted. I wanted a big role as a freshman and I got it. I know high expectations come with that.

Boeheim: Mainly I coached the point guard. The way we played we ran the point guard heavily. So you talk to them a lot. I didn’t really have to talk to him that much. He knew the position, he knew what he had to do and knew what he could do. I just rarely had to talk to him about basketball. That’s unusual.

Autry: We rarely talked to him. He kind of had a feel for what we were trying to do and trying to accomplish.

McNamara: If you look back to that season, his statistics in the last two minutes and basketball games — his assist-to-turnover ratio, his field goal percentage — was astronomical. It was unlike anything as far as a closing effort of guys that I’d ever seen. He was absolutely clutch when the moments were the biggest. He was usually the guy that made the biggest play.

Tyler Ennis hit a buzzer-beating 3-pointer on Feb. 12, 2014, for then-No. 1 Syracuse to defeat then-No. 25 Pittsburgh. The shot reflected a time when both programs vied for the top spots in college basketball. Joshua Chang | Daily Orange File Photo

The game

With a crowd of 12,935 in attendance, Syracuse faced Pittsburgh in a game that had a total of 32 fouls and a combined field goal percentage of 39%. The physicality took a fair bit of toll on Ennis, who took a hard foul with 1:41 in the first half that left him in some pain.

The lead changed three times for each team, but the Panthers never trailed for the first 18 minutes of the second half. Even as neither team shot well, every basket mattered.

Cooney: It was just a normal battle in terms of the games we had with Pittsburgh.

Robinson: We were gonna come in and we were going to give them a fight.

Dave O’Brien, ESPN play-by-play announcer: It’s one thing if an ugly game is a blow up. But that wasn’t. Every basket meant so much.

Robinson: We had to make sure we were ready for it. Whether it be Tyler, Jerami Grant, Rakeem (Christmas), Trevor Cooney. Very highly skilled guys…We were very prepared.

Hart: Both teams went on pretty good runs.

Moore: The atmosphere was what you expected.

The building

Heading into the Feb. 12 matchup, Pittsburgh was 9-0 against top five teams in the Petersen Events Center since its opening season in 2002. Most of the players who came out of town never forgot the Pitt fans.

Cooney: At that time, it was definitely one of the toughest places in college basketball to play.

Waters: You love it when a student section’s got a nickname like “Oakland Zoo.” They’re gonna come ready.

Robinson: It was just amazing to play for, to play in front of and it just made it easier as a player to go out there and compete hard.

Hart: They were just some crazy motherf*ckers.

McNamara: I think they had a cheat sheet of people’s names and family members. I know they did when I played.

Moore: They did their homework.

Hart: I remember their fans, they had a leader and shit who sent out an email with all the different things on every player. So they know your family’s name. They know your wife’s name. Anything. They know your girlfriend. They were very well prepared.

Moore: They were prepared. They had handout sheets, they had newspapers and they were foul and they were personal.

Bailey: I remember the students section was really riding Trevor Cooney before the game.

Waters: They’re right on top of the players. So they interact, they can impact the game. It’s just a great environment.

The final 2 minutes

With two minutes remaining, O’Brien remembered a nervous energy in the crowd even as Pittsburgh led by six.

O’Brien: In the end, Tyler Ennis didn’t have a good game. I remember thinking he’s scuffling and he’s anxious. And I felt Jamie was anxious every time I looked at him on the other sideline, it looked like he was gonna lose his lunch.

To get SU back within a possession, Ennis threw a bounce pass to CJ Fair, who nailed a corner 3 with 1:42 remaining. After Pitt missed its shot on the other end, Fair came down and buried a long 2-pointer from the left side to cut the deficit to one.

CJ Fair, Syracuse guard (SB Nation, February 2014): In those situations, I got nothing to lose. The momentum and the time is kind of against us. If I’d missed that shot, we were already in position to lose. But you can’t be scared to take those types of shots. I saw an opportunity. Even though I was missing everything, I was confident enough to shoot that and then after that, it was over from there.

Pitt still struggled to convert with the score at 55-54. After Patterson missed a layup, there was a scrum and the ball tipped into Ennis’ hands. He rushed down the floor before drawing a shooting foul near the basket. Ennis buried both free throws and SU led with 10 seconds to go.

Bailey: Tyler definitely hit a fair amount of clutch free throws. I never really felt like the moment was too big for him.

Boeheim: He was never rattled.

But on Pitt’s last possession, Patterson fired a bounce pass into the paint for Zanna. As Zanna was motioning to shoot, Christmas got called for the reach-in foul. Boeheim and Grant had their hands in the air.

Hart: They got a BS foul call to take the lead.

Boeheim: Who knows.

The timeout

After Zanna made his two free throws, Syracuse had to inbound the ball with 4.4 seconds to go and no timeouts. Dixon decided to call Pitt’s last timeout, giving SU time to draw up a play.

Boeheim: It actually probably helped us a little bit.

Autry: I remember we didn’t have any timeouts and Coach Dixon called the timeout. Coach drew up the play.

O’Brien: I thought that allowed Syracuse to really get their act together during that timeout. There were a lot of interesting decisions made there.

Waters: If Jamie Dixon wanted to talk to his team and set up his defense, while Talib Zanna was at the free throw line, that’s right in front of his bench. He could’ve called any one of his players over two or three of them if he wanted. Tell them exactly what you want to do.

Robinson: It was nothing out of the ordinary for us. It was pretty routine for us. No regrets.

The inbound and run-up

Grant inbounded the ball with Ennis and Christmas at the foul line and Cooney and Fair at the halfcourt line. Christmas moved to his right, drawing away Cameron Wright for a moment, while Ennis had Josh Newkirk on him.

After about three seconds of real time, Grant threw the ball to Ennis. The point guard was forced up the right side and dribbled four times before taking the shot at Pitt’s logo. He crossed up both Newkirk and Wright to create some space for a shot.

Boeheim: We’re thinking of throwing it long…that wasn’t open so Tyler caught it on the move which is what you want to do.

Jerami Grant, Syracuse forward (The Daily Orange, February 2014): He told me I still should’ve thrown it long.

Waters: They wanted to go to CJ Fair…Lamar Patterson, really good defender, had CJ covered. Jerami did not see CJ open. He said after the game ‘I didn’t want to just throw it to CJ if he’s covered. Because I just wanted to make sure we had a chance at a shot.’

Moore: I guess I was a little surprised how easily we got the ball into him and we kind of ran a wheel. And he got it.

Dixon: We wanted to funnel him to the sideline…we made him catch it deep below the free throw line in the corner. You can’t steal the ball from the guy…And no one’s gonna block a shot at that time. You’re gonna get a foul.

Autry: The way he got the ball, it was just like ‘Man, this is gonna be a tough shot.’

The shot

When Ennis released the ball, he was about 35 feet away from the basket. Everyone was trying to get a beat on the shot.

McNamara: As soon as it left his hands, it looked good from our angle.

Autry: When it left his hand, I just remember sitting there watching it. And by the time he started getting closer to the rim I said ‘This is on line, this is gonna make it.’

Moore: And the thing of it was when he got to the point of letting it go and you could tell it at least had a shot.

Waters: The press seating back then at the Pete was behind the basket…so as soon as we shot it through the backboard glass, we could see that that ball was on-line.

Then the ball fell through the basket with no time left.

Talib Zanna, Pittsburgh center (New York Post, February 2014): They hit a lucky shot.

Dixon: Literally couldn’t have done (the play) better.

The reaction

Once Ennis’ shot went in, the contrast in reactions were stark.

Tony McIntyre, Ennis’ father (The Daily Orange, February 2014): I’ve seen him give you a little smile or fist pump once in a while when a teammate does something good, but I think that one was more toward the crowd. He loves being in situations where the crowd is into it.

Hart: I was probably the first one to run out on the court and because I knew it was good. I just had a feeling just the way that game had been going. He was going to make that shot. Just perfect execution.

McNamara: I remember just from my perspective of when I jumped, I went to run out on the court and then realized that I was a coach and quickly went back to the professional handshake line. So just pure excitement because that made us 25-0.

Autry: Once he made it, I could just remember just jumping up.

Boeheim: I wasn’t that surprised when it went in for some reason.

O’Brien: (Dixon) looked like somebody punched him right in the solar plexus.

Dixon: (There was) certainly disappointment losing but we did what we wanted to do.

Waters: The thing I remember most is when that place is going nuts and it’s just so loud, it’s almost like you can’t even hear yourself think. And when Tyler and his hits that shot, the whole place just went quiet.

The day after the game, Ennis received a phone call from a Syracuse alum.

McIntyre (The Daily Orange, February 2014): He was kind of shocked that he got a phone call from Joe Biden, the vice president. He was kind of shocked by that. He sent me a text, like ‘Hey, can you believe I just got a phone call from the vice president?’ He was in shock a little bit.

Ennis (Field of 68, December 2022): I knew it was special because everybody around me is reacting. But I’m Canadian so I was like ‘Yeah, cool. Like call me. Sure, whatever.’

Photograph by Joshua Chang | Daily Orange File Photo