The delightful arrogance of college basketball's leading scorer

No, no, no, no -- yes!
 By 
Sam Laird
 on 
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Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

Locked in a close college basketball game with under three minutes to play, should you: (A) Launch a 25-footer midway through the shot clock; (B) Precede that three-pointer with a pointless spin move; or (C) Saunter back on defense soaking up the fan love?

The answer is (D), all of the above. At least if you're Central Michigan guard Marcus Keene, that is.

Keene pulled off the cheekiest college hoops shot in recent memory Tuesday night when he dribbled behind his back while executing a reverse spin move way out behind the three-point line before pulling a very deep jumper that found the bottom of the net.


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The sheer arrogance of this shot is staggering -- but also exceedingly awesome.

Now here it is on an infinite loop.

And here it is slowed down and overlaid with the dreamy, trippy soundtrack it deserves.

A few things to note here:

  • Keen's shot didn't come at the end of some blowout. Central Michigan was only up six with two and a half minutes to play!

  • The spin move that preceded the shot, while it is everything in a metaphysical sense, did absolutely nothing in a practical sense. In fact, putting the ball between himself and his defender while turning his back to said defender was unnecessarily risky by any measure.

  • If he missed the shot, he would've looked like an idiot. But he made it, so here we are.

Keene, who stands just 5-foot-9 scored 40 points on the night -- then made it all even better by tweeting a correction to ESPN when they showed a graphic touting his feat but featuring a different Central Michigan player.

Now, Central Michigan is far from a household name in college hoops, so at this point you're probably wondering: Who the hell is Marcus Keene?

He's the nation's leading scorer, for one thing, at 31.4 points per game -- a full six points per game ahead of college hoops' next-highest scorer.

He scores all those points despite being just 5-foot-9, as mentioned above. He's originally from Texas. He transferred to Central Michigan from Youngstown State.

And, as that spinning three-pointer Tuesday night shows, he's delightfully arrogant on the court.

Consider us newfound fans.

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Sam Laird

Sam Laird is Mashable's Senior Sports Reporter. He covers the wide, weird world of sports from all angles -- as well as occasional other topics -- from Mashable's San Francisco bureau. Before joining Mashable in November 2011, his freelance work appeared in publications including the New York Times, New York Times Magazine, Slam, and East Bay Express. Sam is a graduate of UC Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz, and basketball and burritos take up most of his spare time. Follow him on Twitter @samcmlaird.

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