DaytonDailyNews.com

OXFORD — He was on ESPN's Cold Pizza in the morning and Monday afternoon did a radio show and several local and West Coast newspaper interviews.

He got phone calls from former Miami University players, as well as guys like Andy Stichweh and Zach Freshwater — now University of Dayton students — who played basketball with him at Alter High School.

At last count, Doug Penno also had some 150 congratulatory e-mails and a relayed message from Chicago Bulls general manager John Paxson — himself an Alter grad — saying, "Beautiful ... just beautiful."

And for his folks back in Kettering, he said the outpouring has been just as overwhelming: "My mom walked into the Bagel Cafe on Far Hills (Avenue) for her weekly deal with her girlfriend and she got an ovation."

This is what happens when you make a long-distance, jaw-dropping, game-winning shot — one complete with a tricky carom off the glass and done on national television — that puts your improbable team into the NCAA tournament.

In the frantic final-seconds rush of the Mid-American Conference tournament championship Saturday night in Cleveland, the Miami senior guard out of Alter banked in a 3-pointer with what referees — after a 10-minute consultation — determined was 0.6 of a second left.

The shot stunned favored Akron, 53-52, and sent the just-as-stunned RedHawks into the NCAA tournament for the first time in eight years.

While 14th-seeded Miami meets No. 3 seed Oregon — winners of the Pac-10 tournament — on Friday in Spokane, Wash., much of the buzz swirling around Oxford on Monday had to do with "The Shot" and the guy who launched it, a guy who'll become a Miami hoops legend.

"I can still see the ball in the air and I really didn't think it would go in," Penno admitted. "When I let it go, I thought to myself ... well ... that's gonna come off pretty hard. I thought it would come off the back of the rim. I thought my career was over. That was the first thing through my head."

And the next?

"If you could have seen my face, it was kind of like, 'Are you serious? That ball really just went in? We're going to the tournament!' "

Few saw Penno's expression because the entire team came rushing toward him. As he leaped into the arms of 6-foot-8 Tyler Dierkers, the rush of revelers toppled them backward, burying them in a pile of humanity.

"I've still got some bruises on my leg," Penno said, grinning.

But the moment left him with more than that. By the time the team got back to its Cleveland hotel, The Shot already was an ESPN highlight.

"I must have seen it 50 times," Penno said a bit sheepishly. "They just kept playing it ... and I don't think I'll ever get tired of seeing it."

That said, it did leave him tired.

"I couldn't get to sleep that night until about 5:30 (a.m.). I just stared at the ceiling and replayed it over and over," he said. "I knew it'd be a life-changing moment. I didn't have a grasp how, but I wanted to make sure it did for the positive."

Charlie Coles has no worries about that.

"He's one of those unforgettable kids — and that's without the shot," the RedHawks coach said. "His personality is phenomenal, but it's more than that. He's a tough kid. Tough mentally."

A sophomore on the Alter team that won the state basketball crown, Penno also was an All-Ohio football player. He turned down football scholarships and joined the Miami hoops team as a walk-on.

With the RedHawks his role changed, and from a drive-to-the-basket prep player, he was asked to be a designated shooter — a transition that didn't come easily.

He eventually accepted his job, though his 3-point shooting percentage dropped from his sophomore year through this one.

"There were times this year he could have fallen out of a boat and missed the water," Coles said.

Penno admitted he'd especially faltered at the end of the season, going 1-for-10 in the RedHawks' last two regular-season games and then struggling in the first two tournament games, as well:

"In the final I kept thinking, 'You've got to do something. You've got to hit a shot, something to win this game. It's on you.' And I'd be lying to say I didn't fantasize making some kind of game-winner, though maybe not the way I did. I've called it 'a gift from God.' "

And it appears to be a gift that just keeps on giving.

Before the RedHawks began practice Monday, three players re-enacted Saturday night's game-winner.

One played the role of the Akron player who missed the free throw with six seconds left. Another played the part of Michael Bramos bringing the ball up court, and senior Nathan Peavy, the Chaminade-Julienne grad — pretended to be Penno.

"Peavy was me and he put it up from the same spot I did and banked it in on his first try," Penno said. "I guess we're 2-for-2 on that shot in the last 36 hours."

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2156 or tarchdeacon@DaytonDailyNews.com.