Get out your pencil and open the history book. College basketball has a new game atop the standings in the category of “Greatest Championship Ever Played.”
Forget about the tired phrase of “instant classic.” Monday night’s championship battle between Villanova and North Carolina is a mouth-watering masterpiece. It’s sudden superbness. It’s a real-time riveter.
While March Madness is characterized by buzzer-beaters and improbable finishes, rarely do such theatrics happen in the title game. Not since N.C. State defeated Houston for the 1983 national championship has there been a true buzzer-beater to win it.
That’s what makes Monday’s game so memorable. There was not one, but two, miraculous shots in the final :10.
North Carolina’s Marcus Paige tied the game on a double-pump 3-pointer that didn’t seem like it had a prayer of reaching the rim. The problem for UNC – there was over :04 seconds left when the shot went in.
That gave Villanova enough time to dribble down the floor where Kris Jenkins caught a shovel pass just outside the 3-point line. Jenkins’ shot was on its way down when the buzzer sounded, triggering an eruption as it swished through the net.
Said UNC’s Paige, “Soon as he got it, I had a bad feeling about it.”
Added Tar Heel coach Roy Williams, “The difference in college basketball between winning and losing is so small. The difference in your feelings is so large.”
Villanova wins its second national title, 77-74.
As for other championship game heroics, these basketball icons just got bumped down the list.
No. 2 – Lorenzo Charles
The 1983 championship wasn’t supposed to be much of a contest as Houston’s vaunted Phi Slamma Jamma of Clyde Drexler, Hakeem Olajuwon and Michael Young were expected to run away with this one.
But N.C. State slowed the tempo and had the ball in the final seconds with the scored tied at 52. Dereck Whittenburg’s airball ended up serving as a perfect alley-oop for Lorenzo Charles who slammed the ball home in disbelief.
No. 3 – Keith Smart
It wasn’t a true buzzer beater as Smart’s 18-foot jumper fell through the net with :05 left, but it was the game winner as Indiana beat Syracuse, 74-73, to capture the 1987 title.
No. 4 – Michael Jordan
In a game featuring Patrick Ewing, James Worthy, Sam Perkins, and Eric “Sleepy” Floyd, it was freshman Michael Jordan who hit the winning shot with :15 left to lift North Carolina over Georgetown, 63-62, for the 1982 title.
Honorable mention – Christian Laettner’s buzzer-beater to send Duke over Kentucky, 104-103, may be the tournament’s most enduring moment, but that shot was not in the 1992 championship game. It was in the Elite 8.