A quintessential March Madness moment happened at 12:48 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time Thursday in Portland. A Cinderella run out, a complete reversal of form, a stunning Big South takedown of the Big Ten.
Chase Johnston, a 26-year-old, sixth-year collegian who wears No. 99 and whose basketball career is wholly dependent on sinking three-point shots, took an outlet pass ahead of everyone and made the winning layup for No. 12 seed High Point against No. 5 Wisconsin.
FIRST 2-POINTER OF THE YEAR FOR CHASE JOHNSTON 😱
— NCAA March Madness (@MarchMadnessMBB) March 19, 2026
HIGH POINT LEADS!!! pic.twitter.com/N2ZWYSb9Dz
Johnston has taken 138 threes this season and 1,039 as a collegian, the most for an active player in Division I as of Thursday afternoon. The biggest shot of his life—the biggest shot in High Point history—is his only successful two-point field goal of the season. In fact, it’s his first since Feb. 5, 2025, some 13 ½ months ago. He’s attempted all of five two-pointers this season.
There are almost no players with numbers like that in the NBA. Same with high-major college basketball. For the most part, the Chase Johnstons of the game can only thrive at the lower levels, where he has played two years each at three different schools—Stetson, then Florida Gulf Coast, and finally now at High Point. This is the beauty of a sport that goes hundreds of schools and thousands of players deep at the Division I level.
Somebody you’d never heard of becomes a star. Somebody the high-major programs would never recruit takes one out.
The sudden March heroes come in all shapes and sizes and specialties. Like 300-pound-ish wide-body DJ Burns leading North Carolina State to an improbable Final Four two years ago. Like 5' 9" (maybe) Fairleigh Dickinson guard Grant Singleton working over Purdue in a No. 16-on-No. 1 upset three years ago. Like Chase Johnston, the singular three-point shooter raining threes on Wisconsin—until he had to make a layup.
The Cassandras who fear change in college sports cried for years that NIL would ruin everything. It would only facilitate the power schools, leaving everyone else behind. The rich would get richer, and so forth.
And then Indiana football goes 16–0. And No. 16 seed Siena takes overall No. 1 seed Duke to the wire. And while the Saints were scaring the hell out of the Blue Devils, High Point takes down a Wisconsin team many thought loomed as a legitimate threat to top seed Arizona in the West region.
Cinderella lives. She lives at High Point, a school that had never been to the Big Dance until last year, then immediately lost coach Alan Huss to be successor-in-waiting at Creighton, then replaced him with the next man up on the Panthers bench, Flynn Clayman. All he’s done is go 31–4 in his first season, losing just one game since Dec. 14.
Clayman just made history at High Point. Then he joined Miami (Ohio) in planting his flag for the mid-major strivers who never get a chance to play the Wisconsins of the world in the regular season.
“It’s pretty obvious to me that something needs to be done about this nonconference scheduling,” Clayman said. “High Point and Miami (Ohio) are 2–1 in Quad 1 games. We couldn’t get games. They couldn’t get games. Akron, UNCW, Belmont couldn’t get games. We won 22 of our last 23 games and we didn’t move up one spot in the metrics. Not one. We won 22 of our 23. We’ve won 25 games by double digits. If we can get games like this on neutral courts and some home games, I think we’d know who’s really the best teams.”
Forget scheduling, High Point had to hustle in the offseason to build a roster—an annual challenge at the mid-major level. The Panthers brought in players from Southeast Missouri, Liberty, Cal State–Northridge and a couple of high-major spots, Arizona and Xavier.
The Xavier transfer, forward Cam’Ron Fletcher, is also a sixth-year guy. He started his career as a highly touted recruit at Kentucky, but lasted only nine games before leaving. Then it was on to Florida State and Xavier, seeing regular action in only one of his first five seasons.
Fletcher has played 23 games this season and been at his best the last two, the Big South title game against Winthrop (17 points and 19 rebounds) and then against Wisconsin (14 and 11).
Older, mature players are a godsend in the stress chamber of March. High Point needed them in the stretch run against the Badgers.
Johnston gave the Panthers a chance by hitting four threes, three of them in the final five minutes. The initial one in that late flurry ignited a comeback when the game was slipping away, High Point down eight. It was utterly silly—No. 99 caught a pass as a trailer in transition and launched from the logo, 33 feet out, Steph Curry territory.
Splash. Game on.
The next, with 3:22 left, brought the Panthers within a point. The last one, from the corner with 55 seconds left, again closed it to a point at 82–81. Then Johnston made his shortest shot of the season 44 seconds later to win it, 83–82.
“For the most part I just go in the gym, put in the work,” Johnston said. “I trust my work, I trust the Lord, and allow everything else to take care of itself after that.”
For much of this season, Johnston’s career looked like it was going to end with a whimper. He’d lost his starting spot after 10 games, watching his playing time dwindle to almost nothing—there were two DNPs, and six other games in which he didn’t score.
“We started this season 8–3,” Clayman said. “At High Point that’s not good enough for our standard. With how small we were at the point guard spot, I felt like I kind of mixed up our roster composition, and I asked him to take a bench role because we were a little small starting games.
“His willingness to take that role and keep leading, then at the end of the season to be doing what he’s doing, again, it speaks to how selfless these guys are.”
Johnston stayed ready, and in the Big South tournament opportunity arose—Johnston played 48 minutes, his most in a three-game stretch since early December.
And yet he clinched the highest point in High Point basketball history, laying the ball in from point-blank range to deflate the Badgers.
“This is something you dream about,” Johnston said. “I remember playing basketball with my brother in the backyard one on one. We had our own little brackets, picking what teams we wanted to be, and trying to win March Madness. Now to be on this stage with these guys, be able to hit a couple shots, finish with a layup, it’s something that I’ll never forget.”
More March Madness From Sports Illustrated
Listen to SI’s college sports podcast, Others Receiving Votes, below or on Apple and Spotify. Watch the show on SI’s YouTube channel.
- March Madness Day 1 Winners and Losers: Cinderella Keeps Dancing in Men’s NCAA Tournament
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- Tar Heels’ March Madness Meltdown Caps a Colossal Year of Failure for Carolina Way
- The Biggest Comeback in Every Round of the NCAA Men's Tournament
- Siena Player Seen Cursing Out Duke to UNC Staffer in Funny Postgame Moment
This article was originally published on www.si.com as March Madness: Chase Johnston’s Only Two-Point Shot Becomes High Point Legend.
