There may never be an NCAA season tied up so neatly as the one that was on Monday night.

Two teams that had outclassed their opponents throughout the course of the 2016 NCAA Tournament met and played their hearts out in a championship that will go down as one of the most entertaining in recent memory. The characteristic “madness” that has typically defined the tournament, seemingly lost since the opening rounds, came back in a big way as Villanova’s Kris Jenkins nailed a buzzer-beating three to hand the Wildcats the title.

The final minute reached such a level of spectacularity that it almost seemed like it was being taken out of a basketball textbook. A quick look at the play-by-play shows how things went like clockwork both for the narrowly-leading Wildcats and the down-but-surging Tar Heels. Nova made its free throws, while North Carolina didn’t gamble on low-percentage shots until it had no other choice. Until the final five seconds — and even for the tense moments thereafter — the outcome was entirely unpredictable.

With North Carolina down 74-71, Tar Heels guard Marcus Paige made what — aside from a little Northern Iowa magic — was almost certainly the greatest shot of 2016. Paige snagged a ball that had just missed the fingertips of Nova’s Daniel Ochefu, then made one of the most ridiculous three-pointers ever seen in a title game. Somehow, Paige avoided an uncontrolled block from Ryan Arcidiacono and sank an off-balance prayer, completing a comeback effort and for a moment tricking the world into thinking the game might continue into overtime.

As Villanova desperately called timeout, jubilation began to shift back to nervousness as people pondered just how long the 4.7 remaining seconds would feel. Of all the players in the country, there may not have been anyone you’d rather give the ball to than a certain 22-year-old Nova player from Langhorne, Pennsylvania. Ryan Arcidiacono had been the poster child of a ‘Cats team that had impressed the college basketball world with its determination, and somehow it was collectively known that he wouldn’t quit until his team got its chance to strike back.

I like to think that, as he dribbled the ball down the court, Arcidiacono knew there was only one thing he could do to top the heroics of Paige. Everybody who had ever set foot in the state of North Carolina knew that it had to be Arch to toss up the last shot of the game, and, knowing that only a Herculean act could turn the tides on the Carolina comeback, he opted for the unthinkable.

He passed.

That moment embodied everything college basketball has ever been, and everything that it should be. As soon as Jenkins released what would just seconds later become known as the game-winning three, there seemed to be some recognition amongst everybody watching the game that something truly great had transpired.

Words were simultaneously thrown about by everyone, but while exclamations were voluminous, insights were terse. I texted a friend who had attended Villanova with the brief observation, “Wow.” “Fake,” was the entirety of his response a little later. Michael Jordan may have best captured what we all felt when he briefly muttered from the sideline, “I knew it. Great game.”

Arch had done what any basketball commentator might recommend in isolation but few would ever be prepared to do themselves. Even MJ, the greatest player in the history of the game, had only really done it once on a comparable stage over the course of his storied career. Arcidiacono’s pass was both brilliant and unexpected, standing out from a game that had seen miracle after miracle over its course.

It’s not that spectacular passes haven’t been seen before in dramatic games. Grant Hill’s full-court toss to Christian Laettner when Duke played Kentucky in 1992 received plenty of acclaim for its accuracy, albeit generally less of it than the ridiculous turnaround jumper that followed has attracted. The delivery to Lorenzo Charles in the 1983 National Championship — the only other successful buzzer-beater in a college basketball title game — was nominally a pass, even if it was more of a shot-gone-wrong that somehow ended up alright. But Arcidiacono’s drop-off was by far the most deliberate and stunning example of a deserving player handing off the reins to a teammate when everything was on the line.

In the game of basketball, moments like these are quite rare at every level. Personalities like @KingJames and the Black Mamba have convinced us that it’s stars, not teams, that win basketball games. As much as Bill Simmons flaunts “The Secret” and players like Steph Curry and Chris Paul dazzle us with their assists, shot makers still get most of the credit when their heaves fall through the net.

In some ways, this state of affairs makes all too much sense. Detecting greater strategies is quite difficult for the layman in a game where the most popular defense is called “man-to-man.” Offensive patterns require a trained eye and time to truly pick out, and coordinated ball-stopping schemes largely evaporate beyond the college level. For this reason, Arcidiacono’s pass was a rare reminder that team play and selflessness can still triumph.

The shotmaker, Jenkins, deserves his sizable share of the credit. But something about Jenkins’s long three seemed different from the arguably more difficult one which Paige had hit a moment before. While Paige’s shot appeared to be a star doing what he needed to keep his team in the game, Jenkins’s dagger seemed part of some greater plan that we were all a little bit a part of on that day. Many people could be unhappy that their team failed to win, but no one could really react without showing respect.

Arcidiacono may have reduced his role in the history books because of his selflessness, but in a way he accomplished more than he ever could have with a game-winner. Even for a man who’s earned player of the year honors in his conference, a two-foot toss that a kindergartner could make will shine above the rest as the best play of his career.

On paper, it was just an assist. But never has a pass looked more like a ring.

 

To console Andrew Mather for placing 17th out of 21 in the Daily’s March Madness bracket group, send him an email at amather ‘at’ stanford.edu.