Stephen F. Austin’s overtime upset of Duke on Tuesday did more than shock the college basketball scene — it’s helping rebuild a church in the Grand Bahamas.
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Nathan Bain, the fifth-year senior whose buzzer-beating layup won the game, had created a GoFundMe page two months prior to help his family rebuild their house and church following the catastrophic damage of Hurricane Dorian in September. Before Tuesday’s game, the GoFundMe had raised $2,000. As of 6 p.m. ET Wednesday, the total was over $81,000.
ICYMI: Stephen F. Austin UPSET No. 1 Duke, snapping the Blue Devils' 150-game winning streak against non-conference opponents at home 🚨pic.twitter.com/x6xsdesWkL
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) November 27, 2019
According to GoFundMe spokeswoman Aja Shepherd, via ESPN, the Bain family site was the second-most popular campaign Wednesday, with more than 1,900 donors from all 50 states giving an average of $36.
“I was just in disbelief at what basketball had done for my family,” Bain said. “It was truly a blessing.”
Bain’s father, Norris, is a minister who runs Tabernacle Baptist Church in Freeport, Grand Bahamas, which according to Bain has “a couple hundred” congregants and an affiliated K-12 school with an enrollment of about 800. The Category 5 storm left the home and church “gutted.” Hurricane Dorian caused 67 confirmed deaths, and as of late October, 282 people were still missing.
“We just want to make sure we get the people around us taken care of at the church, at the school,” Bain said. “That’s really our main focus, to make sure everyone has a place to worship and to make sure the school is taken care of so these kids can get a proper education.”
SFA’s victory ended No. 1-ranked Duke’s staggering 150-game winning streak at Cameron Indoor Stadium against non-conference opponents, a record stretching back nearly 20 years. While SFA has made the NCAA Tournament five times in the past 10 years, it has only made it to the Sweet 16 once, in 2014, when it lost to UCLA.
“If we would have won, we would not have been deserving of winning, that’s the way I look at it,” Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski told reporters Tuesday. “You have to give credit to them. They’re a … good program and they outplayed us.”
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