On March 20, 2016, Texas A&M trailed Northern Iowa, 69-57, with under 40 seconds left in a second-round NCAA Tournament game.
The Aggies then pulled off one of the most memorable comebacks in sports history, leading to a 92-88 win (box score) in double overtime.
Point guard Alex Caruso (now with the Los Angeles Lakers) led the Aggies with 25 points and nine rebounds, while 6-foot-6 shooting guard Danuel House Jr. — now starting for his hometown Houston Rockets — had 22 points and eight rebounds in the historic victory.
For House, the most noteworthy aspect of his scoring line was his ability to shake off what had been an off night. When the Aggies trailed by double digits with under 30 seconds left in regulation, House had scored only six points for the game. That’s an underwhelming line for the player who led Texas A&M in scoring for the 2015-16 season.
In fact, House was scoreless with under six minutes left in the game!
But House broke out when it mattered most, scoring 16 points in the final 30 seconds of regulation and the two overtime periods. In all, House scored nearly half of Texas A&M’s 33 points in that span.
After the win, Texas A&M coach Billy Kennedy said of House:
He’s never met a shot that he doesn’t like, and he’s never met a shot that he won’t take. Offensively that’s a good thing and sometimes he takes some tough shots. That’s just his mindset and he’s got the green light. Sometimes we tell him put it on yellow. That’s just how he’s wired, and that’s what we want him to do.
House echoed that assessment in explaining his ability to move past earlier struggles during the game.
I’m pretty confident, and I know all the hard work will pay off. So I just try to skip over that possession if I take a bad shot or miss a shot or turn it over or anything and I just try to think about the next possession.
Texas A&M pulled off a 1-in-3,000 comeback: https://t.co/wTt9WoXQPO pic.twitter.com/4evFUu7dLg
— FiveThirtyEight (@FiveThirtyEight) March 21, 2016
With the win, Texas A&M advanced to the NCAA’s “Sweet Sixteen” round for just the second time in 35 years. Led by House, the Aggies also won the 2016 Southeastern Conference (SEC) title — making them the school’s first team since 1986 to win a regular-season conference crown.
House wasn’t selected in that summer’s 2016 NBA Draft, but he signed with the Washington Wizards as an undrafted free agent. From there, his NBA journey began. House officially signed with the Rockets in November 2018, and he’s largely been a rotation fixture ever since.
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