Archer Upsets South Gwinnett in 8-AAAAA Tourney (Video)

The final score probably shocked many in the Parkview gymnasium Tuesday night in the first round of the Region 8-AAAAA basketball tournament.

But Archer boys coach Tim Watkins and his Tigers were not.

Randall Smith made a driving layup with 4.4 seconds left and two-year-old Archer scored the biggest upset of its young history with a 68-66 win over South Gwinnett, knocking the mighty Comets out of the playoffs.

Smith, who finished with 9 points, calmly dribbled around near midcourt for most of the final 30 seconds of the game, then found an opening and drove through the lane to make the winning shot.

The winner came after South Gwinnett’s Kyle Wright had tied the score at 60-60 with 31.1 seconds left.

“He’s just a sophomore,” Watkins said of Smith. “We gave him the keys to the car last year as a freshman and told him ‘you’re our point guard,’ and he’s not afraid when he’s out on the floor.”

Watkins, whose team had lost nine of its final 12 regular-season games and entered the tournament as the No. 8 seed, said he wasn’t surprised at all about how well the Tigers (12-15) played Tuesday.

“You may be shocked, but we’re not,” Watkins said. “It’s been coming together for us. We’ve lost a lot of close games down the stretch. We knew this has been coming.”

Archer outplayed South Gwinnett (19-7) most of the game. The Comets led the entire first quarter and held a 28-22 lead early in the second before Archer went on a 6-0 run to tie the score at 28-28.  South held the lead only two more times from that point on.

The Tigers built their lead to nine points on six occasions, the last time at 64-55 with 2:20 remaining in the game on Dinesh Brown’s two free throws.

But South pressured Archer into mistakes that led to easy baskets and tightened the score. South scored six straight points — two Wright baskets and a short jumper by Qiydar Davis — to tie the score before Smith’s game-winner.

Brown led the Tigers with 18 points and 13 rebounds. Bryan Hamlet had 16, Tramique Anderson 13 and Jermaine Morris 10. Smith also had a team-high eight assists.

South was led by Davis’ 24 points. Logan Adams added 19 and Kevin Haynes had 10.