The Slatest

What It’s Like to Make the Shot Before the Buzzer-Beater Everyone Remembers

Marcus Paige’s late game-tying three-pointer in Monday night’s NCAA men’s basketball championship game between North Carolina and Villanova.

Streeter Lecka/Getty Images

North Carolina guard Marcus Paige made one of the greatest shots in NCAA basketball history Monday night, a leaping, split-legged, double-clutch three-pointer to tie up Villanova, 74–74, with just seconds remaining in the NCAA championship game:

It was a shot destined for the history books (or, more precisely, the history listicles) and highlight reels. Except that, seconds later, Villanova’s Kris Jenkins made an epic buzzer-beating three-pointer to win the game—and steal Paige’s spot as the hero. 

Paige was gracious, if clearly crushed, after the game:

That was supposed to be our moment. I’m sure it will take me a while to watch that game. It’s going to be impossible not to see it. [Villanova’s] shot is going to go down in history as one of the biggest shots in NCAA Tournament history. It’s a buzzer-beater in the final game. So I’m going to see it. And it’s going to hurt every time.

As it happens, Slate’s Alan Siegel interviewed several players who took historic—or almost historic—March Madness shots for a March 16 piece. One of them was ex-Kentucky guard Sean Woods, the man who made what, until Monday night, was almost certainly the most important shot before the shot in the game’s history: a running banker that put Kentucky ahead of Duke by one point moments before Christian Laettner made the Shot in 1992.

Woods says he thinks of his potential game-winner as, in a way, having made its own fundamental contribution to sports history:

When I was a senior at Kentucky, Pat Riley—because he played at Kentucky—came in and visited us and made a great quote. He said, “Man’s biggest fear is fear of extinction.” [We fear] going through life without having a significant impact on something. So from that standpoint, that’s considered the greatest college basketball game ever. Being a part of that is very gratifying.

Paige, one hopes, will remember his own contribution to history with some gratification as well. 

You can read the rest of Siegel’s piece here.

Read more of Slate’s coverage of the 2016 NCAA Tournament.