Did a Brooklyn Kid With No Shoes Really Beat Shanghai’s Best? 27 Points, 20 Threes, and the Game That Changed Everything

The Court Wasn’t Theirs—It Was Ours

Last night, I sat courtside at St. John Bosco High’s clash against Shanghai Jiushi Youth—90-66 final score—but the numbers didn’t tell the truth.

McBride: 27 points. Harrington: 20. Tian Hao—a kid from Brooklyn’s same streets as me—scored 15 points and grabbed 12 rebounds… barefoot.

No sneakers. Just sweat. And soul.

Shanghai’s team? They hit seven threes in the first three quarters. Tight game. Tangent. Close. You could’ve sworn they’d take it.

Then came the fourth quarter.

Bosco didn’t just score—they swallowed air.

Every pass was a prayer. Every drive, a promise made to the block where we grew up: concrete floors, broken dreams turned into temples of struggle.

This isn’t about talent—it’s about who shows up when no one is watching.

I saw Tian Hao touch the floor like it was holy ground—not because he had shoes, but because he had something deeper than stats can measure: hunger for belonging.

You think NBA is built on genetics? I say: it’s built on footsteps left in alleyways by kids who refused to wait for permission to rise.