Viral Texas basketball state tournament game-winning shot changes Tyler Hastings’ life

On a routine day, North Crowley backup guard Tyler Hastings would park his car in the student lot at the Fort Worth, Texas, high school, enter the building and walk to class virtually unrecognized.

But when a car rolled up beside him as he walked toward the school’s front entrance on Wednesday, the North Crowley senior discovered his day would be far from normal.

“What’s up No. 15,” the guy in the car said, extending his arm for a fist bump. “Good game last night, 15, good game.”

Actually, Tuesday’s state semifinal was a spectacular boys’ basketball game.

Hastings, with his team trailing by two points, hit a go-ahead 3-pointer to lift North Crowley (34-3 and ranked second among Division I 6A schools) to a 52-49 win over Duncanville to punch a ticket to Saturday’s state championship game in San Antonio.

But the story here is less about a game-winning shot, which you would come to expect from the nation’s 13th-ranked team, which previously had a viral moment when Jonathan Fox Jr., a 6-foot-3 guard, incredibly finished a twisting dunk off a feed from guard Isaak Hayes in a playoff win earlier this month.

No, this story is about the heroics of Hastings, a sparingly used guard placed into the unlikely scenario of saving his team’s season when he stepped onto the court for the first time in the second half. Hastings entered the game with 17 seconds left and his team trailing 49-47 to shoot two free throws for an injured teammate.

As Hastings — who had played the closing seconds of the first half as a defensive replacement — entered Tuesday’s game to shoot the free throws, one of the broadcasters screamed, “They might make a statue out of this kid!”

When Hastings transferred to North Crowley prior to this school year, his name being mentioned during the closing seconds of a state playoff semifinal was the furthest thing from anyone’s mind.

During the 2024-25 season, Hastings played at Seguin High School, a school known more for academics than athletics. But a chance to play his senior season alongside his father, Chris Hastings, an assistant coach at North Crowley — a school about 30 miles away with state title aspirations — was hard to resist.

“To be honest, my dad told me I probably wasn’t going to play at all if I came here,” Hastings said. “But I wanted to be a part of this experience.”

The part he played was pretty much what he expected: four to five minutes a game when he played, averaging just under two points for the season. Hastings’ highlight reel posted to HUDL this season was a January game against Mansfield Legacy: He finished with three points, a rebound and a steal.

Hastings had played his role for most of Tuesday’s semifinal game against Duncanville as defensive substitution in the closing seconds of a tightly played first half.

In the second half, North Crowley trailed 49-47 when guard Kameron Price left the game with 17 seconds left after taking a hard foul. Someone had to be subbed in to take the two potentially game-tying free throws (the broadcasters mistakenly said that the Duncanville coach chose the North Crowley shooter).

The decision was made by North Crowley coach Tommy Brakel, the only head coach in the school’s 28-year history. He conferred with his assistant coaches to consider the best option.

“I picked [Hastings] because that young man is in the gym working hard all the time,” said Brakel, who led the school in 2008 to a 38-1 record and its only state championship. “All of the guys we had to pick from were relatively cold. But we all have faith in Tyler and his ability to shoot the basketball.”

Chris Hastings, who was in that coaches conference before Brakel made his choice, had no clue what was coming.

“When I see him tap Tyler, I’m like ‘Oh, my God, that’s who you’re going to go with?’ ” Chris Hastings said. “For me, it was nerve-wracking. I get up, tap him on the butt and tell him ‘Go out and knock these down.’ ”

For the season, Hastings had made all four of his attempts from the free-throw line. But he never shot those in front of a capacity crowd in which every person in the arena was standing in anticipation.

His first shot hit off the back rim.

“My nerves were a little shaken,” Hastings said. 

Duncanville called timeout to ice Hastings before his second shot … which also hit off the back rim.

“On his first shot I noticed him fidgeting with his hands, kind of popping each knuckle individually, and I knew he was nervous,” Chris Hastings said. “Then he misses the second shot, and now I’m sick to my stomach because now the dad in me is thinking he’s going to have to live with these misses the rest of his life.”

Both teams battled for the rebound on the second miss, and the ball was tipped out to North Crowley’s Alex Barther II. Barther, standing at the top of the key, looks left toward his star guard, Hayes, who’s covered. Then he looks to penetrate the lane and create for himself, but sees no opening.

His first and second options unavailable, Barther looks to his right where Hastings — who just missed two free throws — had drifted toward the wing.

“I had trust in him, just like I have trust in all my teammates,” Barther said. “So I gave it up.”

Hastings was ready. 

“As he passed me the ball, I thought if no one’s in front of me it’s going up,” Hastings said.

Hastings wasn’t exactly wide open as a Duncanville defender stepped out to contest. As he let the shot fly, his father experienced a sense of calm.

“The 3-pointer, that’s the shot where he’s the most comfortable,” Chris Hastings said. “He does that for this team in end-of-game scenarios, and when he shot it, it was all natural.”

The ball went through the net, Hastings celebrated for a split second, and the North Crowley bench went wild.

“You probably didn’t see me on the tape,” Chris Hastings said, laughing. “Probably because I borderline passed out.”

North Crowley had a 50-49 lead, but the game wasn’t over. Duncanville had one last possession with more than enough time on the clock to win the game. Hastings, after his brief celebration, immediately dropped into a defensive stance and contested the potential game-winning shot that fell short.

North Crowley celebrated and Hastings, the unlikely hero, was mobbed.

“I was just playing my role,” Hastings said of his heroics. “This was the entire team winning the game. I was just lucky to be in a position where I could contribute.”

After celebrating with teammates, Hastings drove home alone, surprised he hadn’t heard from his dad. When he opened the front door, his father, mother and sister were there to greet him along with a few family friends.

“My dad gave me a big hug, said he loved me and told me how proud he was,” Hastings said. “It’s a moment that I’m happy I was able to share with him, and we’ll carry this for the rest of our lives.”

Two days after the game, Chris Hastings admitted that, up until Tuesday, he was nervous about his son’s immediate future. Hastings is an honor student, who is in the top 10 in his class and was named to the National Honor Society. He’s on his way to LSU, which offered him more than $100,000 in academic scholarships to study pre-nursing.

“Me and my wife, we’re kind of scared for him as he goes off on his own,” Chris Hastings said. “Will he make the right decisions? Is he going to be someone so timid where someone will take advantage of him?”

Chris Hastings said that those questions, after the shot heard ‘round Texas, have now been put to rest.

“He showed real courage in taking that shot the other night under those circumstances,” Chris Hastings said. “And in doing that, it made me a little bit more comfortable as a dad saying, ‘Hey, I’m OK with you going out into the real world.’ Me and my wife see that he’s becoming a man, he’s maturing, and that he can step into life willing to take chances—and succeed.”

After Hastings was dapped up by the guy in the parking lot at North Crowley on Wednesday, he was greeted with adoration once he entered the school’s building.

Students mobbed him, prompting members of the football team to serve as his official escort.

“My life has been flipped upside down.” Hastings said. “I’m not a social media person and I never had to use DND [Do Not Disturb] on my phone. But my phone was blowing up from all the Instagram notifications with all the follows and likes. Once I put the DND on, I slept like a baby.”

For North Crowley, the job is not done. The school will play for the state championship at the Alamodome Saturday evening against Brennan (33-3, ranked third among Division I 6A teams), practically a home game for the San Antonio school.

“We’re excited to be in the final,” Hastings said. “And I’m glad I was able to contribute.”

What he’ll be able to contribute in the title game is unknown. Erecting a statue for Hastings, as the broadcasters suggested when he entered the closing seconds of Tuesday’s game? That’s not going to happen.

Establishing a reputation as a North Crowley legend? That’s likely to get stamped with a state championship win on Saturday.

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