Marcus Paige acknowledged his immediate future late Monday. "At some point tonight, I have to take this jersey off, and I'll never put it back on." It was wet with sweat. To his right, his coach's eyes were wet with tears. The press area in which both men sat, one of those oppressively fluorescent lit rooms that brightens each bead of effort and emotion, was somber and still. "I'll just have to rely on a lot of memories with my teammates, because I'm telling you, this was the most fun, probably the most fun year of my entire life, so ... I don't know what else to say." That was the end of University of North Carolina guard Marcus Paige's career.

4.7 seconds before the end of Marcus Paige's career, he had received the basketball outside the three-point line, left the ground, been challenged by a defensive player, pulled the ball to his waist, kicked one leg to the front and one leg to the back, and released one of those Proper Noun shots. What to call it? The Three? The Launch? (The game was being played in Houston, after all.) The Shot was taken -- taken by a fellow University of North Carolina athlete, Michael Jordan, who was among the 74,000 fans watching Paige sink one of the most unlikely and physically creative baskets in the history of college basketball, tying the Villanova Wildcats at 74 points a piece. Paige flung his shooting arm in celebration.

"I told the team when I made the shot and we went to overtime, we got 4.7 seconds to play defense and this game is ours, because no matter what, we were going to win the overtime, because that's just how the game was gonna go," Paige would say later.

The "we went to overtime part" was premature.

After a timeout, Villanova countered with a make of its own: a buzzer-beating jump shot from one of the team's best shooters to win the game, win the season, and conclude the most exciting 5 seconds of play in the history of the sport at the amateur level. Fireworks exploded right after the basket from Kris Jenkins exited the bottom of the net, and confetti covered the hardwood floor. The TV announcers broadcasting the game shreiked. It was a mad and euphoric scene. It was deserved for Villanova. And for Marcus Paige, it wasn't how it was supposed to end.

The National Basketball Association's logo is modeled on Jerry West, the former Los Angeles Laker great and graduate of West Virginia University. There isn't such an image for the college game. If there were, Paige's likeness would be a leading candidate. In that moment, his #5 jersey is on forever.