NorthJersey.com
Johnny Chaname let it fly and then touched the sky.
Chaname, the Lyndhurst senior, nailed a 3-pointer at the buzzer to lift the Golden Bears past Madison, earning the school its first boys basketball sectional title in 45 years and earning him North Jersey Male Athlete of the Week, presented by HSS.
In this day and age, it didn’t take long for Chaname to see the replay of his dramatic shot. On our Varsity Aces Instagram page, video of the play has more than 370,000 views.
“I definitely watched it a lot of times,” Chaname said on March 8, just 48 hours after his heroics. “After the game, I didn’t want to look at my phone, I wanted to be with my teammates. I finally opened my phone and I saw the video. I saw my teammates lift me up and carry me around, and I don’t even remember that.”
As far the play itself, Chaname brought the ball up court and had it poked away briefly by Madison. The ball was saved from going out of bounds, then wound up back in Chaname’s hands.
“I was attacking and I attacked too quick, there was still time left,” he said. “I went back out and waited to go with six seconds left. [The Madison defender] made a great play. He tipped the ball away, then [the ball] was there, I didn’t even see the clock, I just turned around and shot.”
It’s the signature moment – so far – in his outstanding high school career. The 5-foot-10 senior is the school’s all-time leading basketball scorer, a standout baseball player, and even gave football a try last fall for the first time, playing defensive back.
“I will be completely honest, during basketball season, I love basketball and don’t think about baseball that much, and during baseball season, I don’t think that much about basketball,” Chaname said. “Let’s just say I love basketball a little bit more.”
Chaname, 17, grew up in North Bergen before moving to Lyndhurst in 2020. The family lore is he tried soccer, but he was much better with a ball in his hands than at his feet. He’s hoping to continue his hoops career in college, maybe at Rutgers-Newark or Bergen Community College.
Under Lyndhurst coach Perrin Mosca’s style, the Golden Bears have freedom on offense to hunt for open shots. Practices are competitive, even heated.
“Every day, we just work and work,” Chaname said. “We don’t like each other much in practice sometimes, but we know it’s all love. I remember how we were running, practicing on the track in the freezing cold in preseason. We had 13 guys and all of them are with us now.”
Lyndhurst trailed Madison the entire game until Chaname’s shot. The Golden Bears were down by as much as 19. Chaname said assistant coach Jason Romer told the team at halftime to play better defense and just take it one possession at a time.
“We got a stop the first possession of the second half, then we got a 3 and started pressing,” Chaname said. “Our defense won us the championship.”
Away from the court, Chaname is in the law enforcement club at Lyndhurst and is a good student. He likes playing video games and spending time with his family – one of his family nicknames is Big Head in Spanish.
After becoming a viral star and town hero, Chaname doesn’t sound like a player with a big head at all. He credits his teammates and coaches for all his success.
“We lost two seniors, but we had four guys back, so we definitely had a championship caliber team,” Chaname said. “The guys knew it. We all believed and just worked every day and we got to this point.”
Johnny Chaname
Sport: Basketball
School: Lyndhurst
Class: Senior. Age: 17
Accomplishment: Chaname lifted Lyndhurst to its first boys basketball sectional title in 45 years with a buzzer-beating 3-pointer.
