{"id":538958,"date":"2026-03-14T01:37:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-14T01:37:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/538958\/"},"modified":"2026-03-14T01:37:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-14T01:37:13","slug":"today-in-history-march-14-if-he-missed-this-shot-countless-people-could-have-died","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/538958\/","title":{"rendered":"Today in History – March 14: If he missed this shot, countless people could have died"},"content":{"rendered":"

The shot from Riley put the game into overtime, keeping fans in their seats.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/Mykal Riley’s three point shot at the buzzer put the game into overtime. (Getty)<\/p>\n

But outside at that moment, a tornado tore through the carpark of the Georgia Dome.<\/p>\n

Had the game ended on time, hundreds of fans would have been directly in the path of the twister.<\/p>\n

The tornado outbreak caused major damage to Atlanta<\/a>, including to the Georgia Dome, but only one person was killed.<\/p>\n

Thirty other people were injured.<\/p>\n

Mississippi State ended up winning the game, but Riley went on to a long career playing basketball in Europe.<\/p>\n

He was selected as the only Alabama player in the all-tournament team.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/The tornado’s path can be seen in this image. The white circular building on the left of the photo is the Dome. The tornado passed over the carpark. (National Weather Service)<\/p>\n

Another game scheduled for that night had to be postponed because of the tornado, then relocated because of the damage it had caused.<\/p>\n

Because the game had been moved to a smaller venue, only players’ families and friends, bands and cheerleaders were allowed.<\/p>\n

The twister struck during a major storm event, with 46 tornadoes confirmed in a 24-hour period in the US south.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/The tornado outbreak caused major damage to Atlanta, including to the Georgia Dome. (National Weather Service)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The shot from Riley put the game into overtime, keeping fans in their seats. Mykal Riley’s three point…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":538959,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-538958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=538958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538958\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/538959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=538958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=538958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=538958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}