High school basketball: Keyonte George's game-winner leads No. 2 IMG Academy past No. 1 Montverde Academy 65-64

The showdown between the top-two ranked teams in the National Top 20 high school basketball rankings lived up to the billing. No. 2 IMG Academy (Bradenton, Fla.) defeated No. 1 Montverde Academy (Montverde, Fla.) 65-64 on a game-winning layup from Baylor bound guard Keyonte George with five seconds remaining.

Jalen Hood-Schifino was able to put up a heavily contested 3-point attempt from the right wing, but the shot missed short and the Eagles (3-1), who are 52-2 since since the start of the 2019 season with back-to-back MaxPreps National Championships.

On the final sequence, George's initial go-ahead attempt was blocked by Montverde Academy center Vincent Iwuchukwu, but the Baylor signee stuck with the miss and banked home the game-winner for the Ascenders.

Houston commit Jarace Walker paced IMG Academy in the win, finishing with a team-high 20 points to go with seven rebounds and five blocks.

For Montverde, Duke signee Dariq Whitehead put together the most impressive performance of his four-year Montverde Academy career, scoring 31 points on 10-of-19 shooting from the field and connecting on 5-of-9 shots from 3-point range.

The back-and-forth game had 12 times and 11 lead changes in total. The difference in the highly anticipated contest was the turnover battle as IMG Academy turned the ball over three times to the Eagles nine. The Ascenders also shot better, finishing 44.2 percent from the field compared to Montverde's 38.9 percent.

The marquee win comes a day after IMG Academy lost 68-62 to No. 3 Sunrise Christian Academy (Bel Aire, Kan.) in the NIBC opener.

Both the Ascenders and Eagles return to the court tomorrow as IMG Academy (3-0) takes on No. 8 Oak Hill Academy (Mouth of Wilson, Va.) at 5 p.m. (ET) and Montverde Academy (3-1) goes up against Sunrise Christian Academy at 7 p.m.