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.