The biggest winner in the aftermath of Stephen F. Austin's shocking upset of No. 1 Duke might be the fundraising effort for the family of the player who hit the game-winning layup.
A two-month old GoFundMe page set up to help guard Nathan Bain's family rebuild from Hurricane Dorian damage had raised $46,186 , and counting, at 11:50 a.m. EST Wednesday - a massive spike from the roughly $2,000 it had raised before Tuesday night's game that became the talk of college basketball.
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Bain's family in Freeport, Bahamas lost "nearly everything of value" and the church run by his father, a minister, sustained "extreme damage" in the Category 5 storm that hammered the islands, according to the website set up by the school two weeks after the storm. The initial goal was to raise $25,000.
"My family lost a whole lot this year, and I'm just playing this game for them," Bain said in a television interview following the game. "Just playing for my SFA family, my family back home in the Bahamas. I just want to make my country proud and my whole team is behind me. ... When everything happened earlier in the year, they had my back, and I just wanted to return the favor."
Bain scored on a breakaway layup just before the overtime buzzer to give the Nacogdoches, Texas-based school an 85-83 victory that sent shock waves through the sport, ending the Blue Devils' 150-game winning streak at Cameron Indoor Stadium against nonconference opponents - a run that extended nearly 20 years.
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The upset that put the spotlight on the post-Dorian relief efforts came the night before the Battle 4 Atlantis tournament was to tip off in Paradise Island, Bahamas. Participants in the eight-team tournament - which includes No. 6 North Carolina and No. 13 Seton Hall - are assisting recovery efforts, with UNC senior Brandon Robinson leading a donation drive and Seton Hall raising money for hurricane relief.
Dorian hammered the northern Abaco and Grand Bahama islands before giving a glancing blow to the southeastern United States. There were 67 confirmed deaths and 282 people still missing as of late October along with $3.4 billion in losses for the Bahamas, according to a recent report.