BRANDON, MB – It's being called 'the shot seen around the world'. Millions have watched the video showing a Brandon University (BU) coach drain a basketball shot from half-court to win tuition for a student.
Mason Kaluzniak attended Friday night's Brandon University Bobcat basketball games simply hoping to see the Bobcats pick up a win over the Regina Cougars. Kaluzniak left the game with a lot more than that, as the Bachelor of Physical Education Studies student left with free tuition with some help from an unlikely source.
Friday was the final Smitty's “Shoot-out for Tuition” of the 2012-13 season, so the students drawn at random had the option of either taking the shot or choosing anyone in the building to take the shot on their behalf.
Kaluzniak choose Bobcats Head Coach
Gil Cheung to take the shot. Interestingly, coach Cheung's last three-pointer as a player in a Canada West conference game was 10 years ago last week.
"I've been getting a lot of people asking me why I picked Gil," Kaluzniak told CNN's Soledad O'Brien in a live interview that aired on the major news network. "At BU we have a student body of about 3,000 people, so I know, especially in our phys-ed department we're really tight-knit with our professors and the coaches, so when I went out there the only guy that I really knew was Gil . I really never thought it was gonna happen, so I figured I may as well pick a friend of mine so that when he missed I could bug him."
That didn't faze Cheung, as he promptly stepped to half-court and hit the miraculous shot.
“Being a smaller university we have get to know our students really well, and in turn get to have a lot of fun with them,” says Cheung. “This was a lot of fun for everyone involved and I'm just happy I was able to make the shot for Mason.”
Here's video of the amazing shot
Since being posted to YouTube the video has been viewed more than one million times, which doesn't include being aired on major television networks in Canada and the United States, including ESPN, TSN, ABC, CNN, CTV and CBC, just to name a few.
Both Cheung and Kaluzniak have been interviewed by countless new outlets across the continent, making them internet celebrities and ambassadors for Brandon University.
