The buzzer-beating game-winner was, Derik Queen acknowledged, “the very first” of the freshman’s career, but the shot that catapulted Maryland into the Sweet 16 wasn’t without controversy.
The shot by the Big Ten Freshman of the Year came after Colorado State appeared to be on the brink of an upset when Jalen Lake’s three-pointer gave the Rams a 71-70 lead with six seconds left. But after a Maryland timeout, Queen grabbed the inbounds pass with 3.7 seconds left and went to work, dribbling twice before taking off and hanging in midair long enough to get off a bank shot.
That resulted in a thrilling, 72-71 win — and touched off a debate about what constitutes traveling.
NCAA rules, much like those of the NBA and FIBA, allow a player to take two steps after gathering the ball. Although it looked as if Queen had taken three, Gene Steratore, the former football and basketball game official, broke down what seemed to be a simple matter further. Steratore, now working for CBS, determined that Maryland’s 6-10 center had not traveled.
“It’s a great ending, right?” Steratore told Ernie Johnson, Clark Kellogg, Kenny Smith and Charles Barkley. “Look, by rule the dribble doesn’t end until there’s firm possession with one hand locked or, more times than not, with two hands so we’ve got to look to see when the dribble ends. Derik Queen makes the turnaround, the loop. At that point when he brings it back up, we don’t know if that’s fully possessed. If he bobbles that at that point, he could continue to bobble that basketball all the way to the hoop without a travel. So you’ve got to wait until you can define firm possession.
“Now the dribble has ended, as I said most times than not it’s when both hands come together. You can see when Derik Queen has both hands together, one foot hits, next foot, great shot, great ending. To me it just really doesn’t jump off the screen as anything big. I’ve got to be honest about that.”
Kellogg, Smith and Barkley came down on the side of Steratore, even as the social media debate was flaring. “Many times now, in this game we love with the technological enhancements […] we’re starting to overanalyze things that are natural when we watch them,” Steratore said.
For you gather-step-haters: This Maryland game-winner is a travel by the rulebook. He gathers the ball with his right foot down (pivot foot), then lifts it and puts it back down—travel. BUT this happens so often on drives, no one bats an eye. pic.twitter.com/TEvRVgL4fm
— BBALLBREAKDOWN (@bballbreakdown) March 24, 2025
An unnamed official contacted by Matt Norlander of CBS Sports disagreed. “In the interest of checking in and making sure with those who know best, I just spoke to a veteran official and they said without wiggle room for interpretation: Derik Queen absolutely traveled on this shot,” Norlander wrote on X.
Colorado State Coach Niko Medved, perhaps still numb from the ending, didn’t commit to saying that Queen had traveled.
“I haven’t seen the video yet,” he told reporters immediately after the game. “It’s going to be hard for me to watch. I’m sure I will at some point. I don’t know. I don’t know. Maybe it was [traveling], maybe it wasn’t, but it doesn’t matter — they didn’t call one [laughing]. So whether it was or wasn’t, they didn’t call one and they never go back and change the call. But again, he made a really difficult shot, guys. I mean, he made a really, really difficult shot. They just made one more play than we did.”
Here’s another angle on the play:
Queen, who finished with 17 points, had an earlier traveling turnover, but this time, as refs often do with the game on the line, there was no call. “For everyone saying Queen walked — you’re right,” Sports Illustrated’s Pat Forde wrote on X, “and that is never getting called in that moment.” He went on to add, “I’m not saying it SHOULDN’T be called. I’m saying it WON’T. I’ve watched hundreds of games this year and a player going to the basket on a play like that at the end of a game is going to get an extra step. That’s the reality.”
The reality now is that Maryland, which gets past the second round of the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2016, will face Florida, a No. 1 seed, in the Sweet 16.
