North Carolina Tar Heels

UNC's Luke Maye describes his crazy week after toppling Kentucky

Published Mar. 31, 2017 11:28 a.m. ET

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Aaron Torres

The 2017 NCAA tournament had lacked major late-game drama – until North Carolina’s Luke Maye changed that last Sunday afternoon. The sophomore forward from Huntersville, North Carolina, hit a game-winning jumper with just 0.3 seconds left to give the Tar Heels an 83-80 victory over Kentucky and carry them into their second consecutive Final Four.

The shot will forever live in Carolina lore, and it made Maye an unlikely March icon, something he is still coming to grips with less than a week later. His life hasn’t been the same since that bucket, and if he needed proof how different things would be going forward, it came early Monday morning.

https://twitter.com/ABC11_WTVD/status/846416407013281792

Maye showed up for his normal 8 a.m. econ class and took his usual spot in the front row. But before he could get too comfortable, class was briefly halted – to give him a standing ovation.

“I was just going to class, just normal, 8 a.m.,” he said. “To go to class, have that ovation, it was cool to see how much people really care about myself and about our team.”

 

Of all the messages he’s received, the most notable came from none other than another March legend, Christian Laettner. It’s rare that Duke and Carolina guys can see eye-to-eye on much of anything, but Laettner couldn’t help but notice the parallels between the two shots.

A March game-winner from a player at a Tobacco Road school, wearing No. 32 against Kentucky? It was too sweet not to mention on social media.

“Yeah, that was pretty cool,” Maye said smiling. “I didn’t respond to him because I’m not really big on Twitter. But I definitely saw it and I wanted to thank him, and I’ll probably reach out to him soon to thank him for that.”

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