In February 1982 Dwight Anderson of the University of Southern California scored one of the strangest goals in basketball history.
A University of Washington player had missed a shot at the basket. One of Anderson’s teammates snared the rebound and fired the ball upcourt. Anderson raced after the ball, but by the time he caught up with it, he was almost out of bounds.
As his momentum carried him over the back line, Anderson flipped the ball over the back of the backboard. The ball swished through the net.
The basket counted because Anderson’s feet had not touched ground even though his body was out of bounds.
From The Giant Book of More Strange But True Sports Stories by Howard Liss. Illustrations by Joe Mathieu.
https://www.si.com/college/usc/recruiting/remembering-usc-star-dwight-anderson
It seems Anderson could have been one of the greatest players ever. He was called the “Michael Jordan of our era” by no less than Isiah Thomas. But he suffered from alcoholism and drug addiction which appears to have tanked his professional career. He played one season in the NBA before going on an odyssey with several minor league, foreign, and even corporate teams before hanging it up for good. He died at age 59 and the cause of death was never released by the family which suggests that he either drank himself to death or overdosed.
The basket:
There is a documentary about Anderson: