Villanova beats North Carolina in NCAA title game on Kris Jenkins’ three-pointer

Kris Jenkins threw the in-bounds pass to Ryan Arcidiacono and set in motion one of the greatest finishes in college basketball history.

The two Villanova players did all the work on the final play of the NCAA Championship game. It started with 4.7 seconds remaining and ended with Jenkins burying a three-pointer as the buzzer sounded to complete the 77-74 triumph over North Carolina.

The Wildcats run the play in practice every day. Arcidiacono has the option to shoot or give it up. A voice trailing him urged him to pass. It was Jenkins’.

“He was yelling, ‘Arch, Arch, Arch,’” Aricidiacono said.

Six dribbles after taking Jenkins’ pass, Arcidiacono flipped the ball back to its most confident shooter.

“I think every shot is going in,” Jenkins said.

When this one did, Jenkins and Villanova entered college basketball lore. This one will be remembered with the most famous, at least over the past few decades. Lorenzo Charles won the 1983 title for North Carolina State when he snared Dereck Whittenberg’s shot and dropped it through with 1 second remaining to beat Houston.

Mario Chalmers’ three-pointer with two seconds left forced overtime against Memphis and the Jayhawks went on to win the 2008 title.

North Carolina’s Michael Jordan and Indiana’s Keith Smart won titles for their teams in the 1980s with late jumpers.

Duke’s Christian Laettner sent his team to the 1992 Final Four with a dramatic tournament shot to beat Kentucky.

But this is likely the first time a team won with the ball in the air and time expired. The ball left Jenkins’ hand with .5 seconds remaining and reached the peak of the arc at 0.0.

North Carolina Coach Roy Williams got a sinking feeling when he saw Jenkins square up.

“I wanted him to be more covered,” Williams said. “I hoped we’d get up to him closer. I really felt we’d gotten him to do what we wanted to do. They weren’t able to throw it the length of the court. They had to take it about 75 feet.

“But when the shoot went up, his follow through looked great. I pretty much knew it was going in. I was helpless, not a good feeling.”

The officials gathered at the scorer’s table to review the shot, but Williams had already sought out his counterpart Jay Wright for congratulations. The Villanova players were celebrating and the confetti and streamers were falling.

To think, 4.7 earlier, North Carolina had put itself in position to claim one of the great title game comeback victories.

The Tar Heels had made up a 10-point deficit with five minutes remaining, and the final five points by guard Marcus Paige were spectacular. He missed a layup, went up through taller Villanova players to collect the offensive rebound and put it back in. That cut the Wildcats’ lead to 72-71.

Josh Hart answered with two free throws, giving North Carolina possession with 13.5 seconds remaining.

Paige rolled off a screen and took a pass. Wildcats big man Daniel Ochefu went for a steal, missed and took himself out of the play, leaving Paige open.

As Paige rose to shoot, he wanted to get the ball to Brice Johnson under the basket, but recalculated in the air.

“Obviously, we needed a three,” Paige said. “That’s why I hesitated with the ball when I jumped.”

Paige released and the ball fell in, a wildly wonderful shot for the Tar Heels that tied the game and changed its feel.

Villanova took its final timeout, and it would be difficult to identify the more confidence team.

“I told my team when I made that shot, we’re going to overtime,” Paige said. “We have 4.7 seconds to play defense and this game is ours. No matter what, we were going to in in overtime because that’s just how the game was going to go.

“We had clawed back from down 10.”

But Villanova knew what to do. The Wildcats have plays for four seconds or less and situations between four and seven seconds.

“I didn’t have to say anything in the huddle,” Villanova Coach Jay Wright said. “Just put everybody in their spots.”

Jenkins is actually the last option as the inbounder, Wright said. But Jenkins noticed he wasn’t being guarded as he followed Arcidiacono up the floor.

“From previous games I realize when I take the ball out, the ball gets up the court and the defenders usually follow the ball,” Jenkins said. “I knew when I gave Arch the ball he was going to be aggressive. They were going to try and take Arch away because he’s hit big shots in his career.”

Wright grabbed Jenkins as the team broke the huddle. If he could catch up to Archidiacono and get in his line of vision, the shot could be there.

It was. And when it splashed in, Villanova had a second national championship in dramatic fashion. In 1985, the Wildcats pulled off one of the greatest upsets in NCAA history, defeating mighty Georgetown and Patrick Ewing by shooting 78.6 percent for the game.

This time, Villanova won the regional in a narrow defensive slugfest over Kansas, the tournament’s top seed. The Wildcats set a Final Four record for victory margin by beating Oklahoma in the semifinal final, and now this, a shot for the ages.

“It was like in slow motion,” Ochefu said as he watched the final play unfold. “I’m still trying to grasp what happened here.”

This story was originally published April 4, 2016 at 11:13 PM with the headline "Villanova beats North Carolina in NCAA title game on Kris Jenkins’ three-pointer."