Chase Johnston attempted 137 shots this season. One hundred thirty-three of them were three-pointers. He was 0-for-4 on the four 2-point attempts he took all year. Then, with 11.7 seconds left and High Point trailing by one, he caught an outlet pass in transition and laid it in for an 83-82 stunner over No. 5 Wisconsin.
The No. 12 Panthers beat the Badgers in the first round of the NCAA Tournament Thursday in the West Region. It was High Point’s first NCAA Tournament win in program history. Wisconsin, a 10.5-point favorite, headed home after a guard who spent the entire season refusing to go near the paint delivered the shot of the tournament.
Johnston finished with 14 points, including four three-pointers. The layup was his only field goal that was not from beyond the arc. The setup was textbook chaos: Wisconsin’s Nick Boyd missed a layup at the other end that would have put the Badgers up three, and Johnston leaked out for the break before the Badgers could regroup.
High Point Guard Chase Johnston Creates Magic
The statistical context makes this almost impossible to believe. Johnston took 133 three-point attempts this season. He made zero 2-point field goals in 137 total shot attempts heading into Thursday. Every inside attempt he tried this year came up empty. When it counted most, he did not think about any of that.
“When Rob [Martin] threw that up, I was like, I got to put this in the hoop and win this game,” Johnston said after the final buzzer. “I wasn’t really thinking whether it was a two or a three.”
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His teammate Rob Martin, who threw the outlet pass, could barely contain himself in the locker room. “Chase probably dunk a little bit,” Martin said, drawing laughs from his teammates. “But I knew Chase was gonna make a layup.”
A Player Who Almost Quit the Game
Johnston’s story is bigger than one basket. The 26-year-old senior came into the year after a stretch where he seriously considered walking away from basketball entirely. His faith pulled him back.
High Point’s win over Wisconsin called by Student Radio.
This is why we love March
pic.twitter.com/ThgCvgMD0i— Barstool Sports (@barstoolsports) March 20, 2026
“I was in deep prayer and the Lord was like, I want you to come back and play basketball but I want you to do it for my glory,” Johnston said. He transferred to High Point and became one of the most prolific three-point shooters in the country. Nobody handed him the layup game-winner in the script he wrote for himself. March Madness rewrote it for him.
High Point advances to the Round of 32 as one of the bracket’s great Cinderella stories. Wisconsin goes home having lost to a guy who spent the vast majority of the season acting like the paint did not exist. Nobody in the tournament field saw Johnston’s first two-pointer of the year coming. That is the only kind of ending March Madness actually deserves.
