{"id":23298,"date":"2019-03-21T17:55:54","date_gmt":"2019-03-21T21:55:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=23298"},"modified":"2019-03-28T12:57:40","modified_gmt":"2019-03-28T16:57:40","slug":"auroras-nembhard-leads-gators-into-march-madness-berth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/auroras-nembhard-leads-gators-into-march-madness-berth\/","title":{"rendered":"Aurora\u2019s Nembhard leads Gators into March Madness berth"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Jake Courtepatte<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Andrew Nembhard was given the opportunity\nof his lifetime in Friday\u2019s basketball game for his University of Florida\nGators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tied at 73 points apiece with the number-one\nranked LSU Tigers in the NCAA\u2019s SEC Conference quarterfinal, the Aurora native\nwas given the ball at the top of the three-point line with just seconds\nremaining on the clock.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He hit nothing but net, with exactly one\nsecond remaining, to pull of the incredible upset.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The shot heard \u2018round the state\nofficially sent the Gators to the prestigious NCAA March Madness tournament:\nsomething Nembhard told NCAA.com \u201cfelt great,\u201d to put it lightly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m just trying to stay in the\nmoment\u2026it\u2019s just great to get that win for our team.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite the pressures of such a\nmonumental moment, as the underdogs in a game broadcast across Florida, the\nfive-star point guard said he \u201cfelt ready\u201d for the moment thanks to \u201call the\nhard work (he\u2019s been putting in.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy coaches have helped me so much, my\nteammates have been giving me so much confidence. So I think I was ready to\nstep up to the plate.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nembhard, who attended Vaughan Secondary\nSchool through his first two years of high school before finishing out his high\nschool career at a prep academy in Florida, is no stranger to the spotlight: he\nwas thrust into the starting point guard position at Florida this season in\njust his freshman year, and has shared the court and the spotlight on plenty of\noccasions with former teammate R.J. Barrett, projected to go second overall in\nthis year\u2019s NBA draft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet it is the six-foot-five Nembhard,\nwho average just over eight points per game in his first season with the\nGators, who now owns the lion\u2019s share of the spotlight: and is the number-one\nguy on the court called on to make shots like Friday\u2019s buzzer-beater.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re a kid, it\u2019s like, what you\ndream of doing,\u201d said Nembhard. \u201cI\u2019m just excited for it to have happened.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the game, Nembhard was also named\nto the SEC\u2019s All-Freshman team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This year\u2019s March Madness will feature\nCanadian talent almost unheard of in the fan-frenzy tournament, Nembhard being\none of nineteen Canadians to book a ticket to the big dance.<\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Andrew Nembhard was given the opportunity of his lifetime in Friday\u2019s basketball game for his University of Florida Gators.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":23296,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[24,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-sports","category-sports"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/2019-03-21-09.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-63M","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-15 11:34:58","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23298"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23298\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}