HOUSTON — Playground perfect, that’s what this was. It doesn’t happen in life.
In the real world, there are messy contradictions and inquiries and qualifiers and then, maybe a decision is handed down that very well could be appealed or reviewed or overturned.
But on the playground when you’re alone and 10 years old, this is the way it works: You yell to your pretend teammate you’re open. You glance at the phantom game clock over the top of the composite fiber backboard with the holes in it and see that it’s winding down to :03, :02 ... you glance back to your ghost point guard who’s dutifully beelined you the ball right in your shooter’s pocket and up you go with the :01 only in your head because you are focusing on that rattled-up old rim hanging down at an 82-degree angle, begging you to feed it the winning shot.
And, of course, you get it off just in time because there are never any video replays on the lonely asphalt. It arcs up and, just at its apex, you make the vowel sound of the horn — Aaaaaehhh!
It could’ve been anyone on this Villanova team living his playground dream, that’s the beauty of it. Because all five starters and at least a couple on the bench would’ve been ready and willing to take the final shot in the National Championship Game of college basketball with a tie score and a split-second left to play.
But Kris Jenkins did it. He lived it. He knew it was going in. And Ryan Arcidiacono knew he’d hit it or he wouldn’t have passed Jenkins the ball.
On so many other teams it would’ve been the hero move you’ve seen hundreds of times. One guy slaloming up court with that look of blind resolve in his eye that attracts defenders like sharks to blood. And so, he always takes the shot contested by at least one and often multiple opponents obstructing every possible crevice of a release point.
But Ryan Arcidiacono does not play that stuff. He can’t cut hero ball. And he doesn’t get the goggle eyes when the clock is running down so that his entire team is thinking, yep, it’s going up.
No, Ryan Arch, as they call him, plays winning ball. Which meant he weaved from the left backcourt sideline where he’d taken Jenkins’ in-bounds pass to just outside the key — just to make certain the North Carolina defenders who’d neglected Jenkins continued to do so and instead stood transfixed on him, knowing he was pulling up for the winner.
Then, he tidily flicked a little pass to Jenkins, spotted up comfortably at 24 feet out the right wing.
Arcidiacono verbalized what he and this team are about with one sentence regarding that play afterward:
“It's not about me taking the right shot. It's about me making the right read. I think I just did that.”
You could say North Carolina should’ve at some point picked up Jenkins, the Wildcats’ best three-point shooter. But it looked so much like Ryan Arch was going up for that shot. Everybody does in that situation.
Jenkins explained it best:
“From previous games, I realize when I take the ball out, the ball gets up the court, the defenders usually follow the ball. I knew when I gave Arch the ball, he was going to be aggressive. They were going to try to take Arch away because he's hit big shots in his career.
“When they all followed the ball, I just knew if I got in his line of vision, he would find me.”
We’re skipping a few things during a game that simulated a punch-for-punch fight, neither side giving in. Like at least two would-be turning points and a miracle shot that could’ve sent it to overtime.
Phil Booth hit a ridiculous fade-away while trapped in the paint with 3:00 left and the shot clock running out that bumped 'Nova's lead back out to five and beat back a UNC run.
But the Tar Heels completed their run anyway when Marcus Paige hit what should be remembered as one of the great shots in Final Four history, an insane double-pump, 26-foot three with his feet splayed out like Rod Tidwell’s bleacher-hanging TD celebration.
It won’t be, though, because there were still 4.7 seconds left when Paige’s shot curled into the net, sending spectating Carolina grad Michael Jordan into a triumphant pose. Jordan probably wouldn’t have left so much time because, well, he was the best end-game player ever.
But even Jordan’s wrap-ups never exceeded this.
The only endings as perfect as Villanova’s final response are scripted or prefabricated. Game shows where “You’ve won a new car!” or Vegas slot machines where the gold coins come spilling out by the hundreds onto the floor and the bells ring in delirious cacophony.
Jenkins rose up for that playground shot and it left his fingertips with :00.5 showing on the very real game clock.
Just as Jenkins’ three-pointer curled through — not perfect, just a little left, grazing the inside of the rim but not nearly enough to disturb its passage — the horn sounded. The crowd screamed. Jenkins didn’t pogo or run figure eights. He just stood with arms outstretched in a perfect V for Villanova victory.
And bang! An explosion in the ceiling popped all the blue and gold and white confetti free. Down it tumbled in a great January blizzard all over the winners, barely and not-quite adults, but a decade removed from their playground dreams, now living them in full color, real life, the way no one ever does.