Otega Oweh's teammates react to miracle heave at the buzzer: 'It was destiny.'

Just like they drew it up, right? Otega Oweh is known for putting on his Superman cape and saving the day for the Kentucky Wildcats, but never on a stage like this — not even the game-winner in the SEC Tournament compares. It was a flip from devastation to glory, Allen Graves hitting a dagger three with two seconds to go to put Santa Clara up three at the end of regulation, followed by a near-half-court heave from Mr. OO to bank it in at the buzzer and send it to overtime.

Oweh forced some bad shots down the stretch and the scare was real, but the make, combined with his six in overtime to ice it, pushed his total to 35 points while adding eight rebounds and seven assists to join only Larry Bird (1979), Bill Bradley (1965) and Oscar Robertson (1959) hitting those marks in a March Madness game.

No matter where this thing goes moving forward, Oweh got his One Shining Moment and the Cats avoided the embarrassment of a third first-round exit in five years. It wasn’t the prettiest 45 minutes of basketball, but those 2.4 seconds? About as gorgeous as it gets.

Full Kentucky sequence.

Just stadium sound.

Chills ‼️ @MarchMadnessMBB https://t.co/lwVfFSHFsb pic.twitter.com/jkO2HgbNs5

— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) March 20, 2026

“It’s amazing. A dream come true. God just gets all the glory,” Oweh said of the shot following the win. “I thank Him because He’s given me the strength to go out there every single night, play injury-free. It was just awesome.”

Did he know it was falling once it left his fingertips?

“When I saw it, I was like, it’s a little left, but it was a good (look). I got it high, so I knew it was going to go off the backboard, but it’s crazy. My first shot that I — I took a three and we could have taken the lead (down two with a minute to go), but it popped back out. I thought that was good, so I really didn’t know. I was just waiting for it to go in.”

Fortunately for all of us, it did.

How did his teammates react to the buzzer-beater? Did they expect it to go in once he fired away? KSR caught up with the Wildcats in the locker room.

Collin Chandler

“It went up, it was just a hope and a prayer from his teammates. He probably maybe knew it was good. We were just like, man — because there were two seconds there where it’s like devastation. They just hit a shot, two seconds (left), we gotta heave one. It’s full of emotions. It feels like it goes in slow motion, where it’s like, man, we could be going home. But it was destiny. …

“I don’t know. I don’t know exactly how I feel. I don’t know. It was a surprise. It just kind of felt like it was meant to happen. It was kind of how it felt when it happened. It was like, okay. And it gave us a big boost going into overtime, a lot of momentum. Unbelievable to live through it.”

Brandon Garrison

“Obviously, it was a big-time shot. He’s had a lot of game-winners in the past year when I played with him and this year, obviously. It’s just what Otega does. … It’s Otega. He proved that he can make game-winners. When it went up, it looked very good and I just knew it was going in.”

Kam Williams

“I mean, it’s a pretty big shot. It’s either you make it and we move on or we miss it and go home, so it was an amazing shot. I’m glad that I was able to teach him that kind of shot, too. So it was awesome. …  There’s multiple videos on YouTube, like crazy buzzer-beaters, stuff like that. So, I’m pretty sure that’s going to be in one of the videos going forward. … But hopefully we don’t have endings like that all the time so that we can build a comfortable lead, hold on to it.

“But, I mean, it’s March — anything can happen. So I’m glad that we were able to take this.”

Malachi Moreno

“I knew it was going in. It was definitely one of those March moments. … (It was) very big, just having that moment. Now he’s going to be remembered in March forever, so just him having that shot gave us a chance at overtime.”

Mo Dioubate

“I was just praying for it to go in. I was about to cry if he missed that shot. (Laughs). Yeah, I was just hoping the shot went in. I didn’t want the season to end already. We love being around each other every day. So I was just thinking this can’t be the moment where — once he made it we were so happy.”

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Never a doubt.

Let’s run it back on Sunday — without needing a half-court buzzer-beater to survive, though, preferably.