Marcus Paige's memorable 3-pointer didn't win an NCAA title, but his legacy as a Tar Heel is secure

The North Carolina locker room was so quiet you could hear the heartbeat of a season ending in ash. Captain Marcus Paige sat with his head down, unable to process how his miraculous, double-clutch three-pointer — a shot Roy Williams called the "toughest" he’d ever seen — had been erased in a heartbeat by Kris Jenkins. Williams had nothing to say to the team that “could make them feel better,” and it took a voice from the back of the room to break the silence: Michael Jordan, leaning in to tell a heartbroken senior that he had nothing to be ashamed of.

For exactly 4.7 seconds, before the silence and before the Jordan pep talk, Paige had achieved a rare kind of basketball immortality. In that frozen moment inside Houston’s NRG Stadium, he was the hero who had willed a team back from a 10-point deficit to force an overtime for the national championship. Ten years later, we remember that shot not as a conclusion, but as a prelude to the most dramatic finish in NCAA history.

It remains one of the greatest shots ever made that didn't actually win the game.

“It's changed over time. Obviously when it was more fresh after it happened, and people would ask me about it, they'd come up to be like, sorry, I was there. It was a great shot that no one's gonna remember, I'd kind of get mad,” Paige said. “Now that we have some distance from it, honestly, the thing I remember most is how good of a game it was. Yeah, we lost, I know. But the Final Four was the most fun week of my life, and the most fun week of college that I ever had.”

The scoreboard still says Villanova won 77-74, but the history books have carved out a space for Paige's game-tying 3-pointer. His shot remains a moment of brilliance that is remembered not only for what it was and what happened seconds later, but more importantly how it paved the way for the next chapter in Chapel Hill.

“Everyone says that people forget the shot. But that has not been my experience at all,” Paige said. “The two shots are pretty interconnected. You can't really talk about Kris Jenkins' game-winning three without the context of what just happened before it, because it makes it even more spectacular. Everyone's always told me, it's going to be the shot that no one remembers, but everyone's still talking about it all.”

Today, Paige walks the halls of the Dean Smith Center not as a player, but as a mentor, leading a new era of talent with the same character that defined his storied career. He spends his days instilling the same grit that made him a three-time captain and a Tar Heel legend.

A decade later, the sting of Houston has been replaced by the wisdom of Chapel Hill. This is the story of how that shot — the meant-to-be moment quickly exorcised — refused to be forgotten, carving out a permanent place in history and proving that for Paige, the final score was only the beginning of his impact on North Carolina basketball.

North Carolina's reaction to Villanova loss

The shot itself was the frantic climax of a comeback that seemed impossible just minutes prior. Trailing by 10 with under five minutes to play, the Tar Heels looked buried. But Paige refused to let the light go out and Carolina crept to within three with 13 seconds left.

When he rose for his final, contorted three-pointer — legs kicking, double-clutching in mid-air to avoid a lunging defender — the laws of physics seemed to suspend alongside him.

Kris Jenkins hit the next shot, but Marcus Paige's heroics shouldn't be forgotten. pic.twitter.com/M8Q1vdacMw

“I was definitely rooting for Carolina, my brother’s teammates were on that team,” Seth Trimble, a captain of the 2025-26 squad, said. “I remember I jumped up and down as soon as he hit that shot.”

When the ball finally ripped through the net to tie the game at 74, it felt like more than just a basket; it felt like destiny. For those four and a half seconds, NRG Stadium was transformed into a cathedral of Carolina blue, and Paige was its architect.

“We needed three, so I was prepared to just take the moment in my hands,” Paige said. “The immediate reaction was like a whole new breath of life into the team, and we felt that from the crowd, the reaction and everything assuming that we would get one more stop.”

But, college basketball fans know how the rest goes. As Paige said: “That didn't happen.”

If you were a basketball player — especially a Carolina basketball player — you knew the moment the ball left Jenkins’ hand that the miracle was over. The realization didn't come from the flight of the ball, but from the sideline, where Villanova coach Jay Wright was already turning toward the handshake line before the net even moved.

Villanova won the 2016 national championship.

“It paused, but the confetti was moving,” Joel Berry II, the other starting guard for the Tar Heels, said. “Before I could even decide to walk and realize the moment, the confetti was falling down.”

Paige  — the three-year captain — saw his entire world change.

“I think everybody felt like, man, this is going in. [Jay Wright] knew it was going in,” Paige recalled. “When it hits, it’s obviously the most deflating… The confetti just popped right away. You feel not only the weight of the game of the national championship, but when you're a senior, you feel the weight of your entire career. The door slams closed.”

What followed was a blur of hollow rituals: the navy blue confetti started piling down, the slow march down the NRG Stadium hallway, the oppressive silence of a room filled with ash, and the heavy words of Williams. Even the presence of Jordan, leaning into the huddle to remind a heartbroken squad that "great winners must first learn to lose," couldn't immediately break the shock.

“Our whole goal going just throughout that year was we wanted to get [the seniors] guys a ring in some way, shape or form,” Berry said. “We won the ACC championship that year, we ended up winning the ACC regular season, we went over to Duke and won. Once we lost, Coach Williams didn’t have to say anything.”

The 2016 championship may feel like ancient history to some, but in the current locker room, it remains a living text. Trimble and his teammates don't have to look far to find inspiration; they see the man who hit 'the shot' every day in practice.

“I’ve always looked up to Marcus, he was always my second favorite player behind my brother. I always loved the way he played and the way he led a team,” Trimble said. “ He’s such a big reason why I’m still at this university. Having a guy like Marcus in my corner, a guy that I looked up to, a guy that sees a big brother and a guy that I'll see as a coach, just having that like relationship and every possible aspect is so important for me. Our relationship is definitely second to none.”

But long before Paige was a coach, he was the catalyst for a transformation in Chapel Hill. His 2016 shot laid the emotional and competitive groundwork for what would eventually become the greatest redemption tour in the history of the program.

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The redemption tour

Right after the buzzer ended Carolina’s season in heartbreak, the name was official: The Redemption Tour.

“That year, we felt it because we knew what was taken from us,” Berry II said. “We knew that we wanted to get back to that point of winning the national championship, and that team did whatever it needed to do to be able to get back to that moment.”

For Berry and the Tar Heels, that meant playing with a chip on their shoulder that appeared the moment they stepped foot in Hawaii for the Maui Invitational.

“People were calling us overrated, so we decided we were coming to sweep everything—and not just on the court," Berry said. "We won the dance competition, we won at cornhole, and we won every game by 15-plus. That’s how hungry we were. We walked out of there having won everything.”

During the preseason, players made a point of leaving the seats usually occupied by Paige and Brice Johnson empty during team meetings, a silent tribute to the leaders who had gotten them "this close" to the dream. 

That haunting image of Villanova’s confetti became the catalyst for a 2017 tournament run defined by grit. It wasn't always pretty — most notably the "Elite Eight" showdown against Kentucky where Luke Maye hit a game-winner of his own — but there was a sense of inevitability to their march toward Glendale. Unlike the year prior, this team seemed forged in the fire of their own heartbreak, playing with a defensive intensity that suggested they simply refused to let history repeat itself.

When they reached the National Championship against Gonzaga, the game had devolved into a physical, whistle-heavy grind. But in the closing moments, the Tar Heels finally found their exclamation point. With North Carolina clinging to a three-point lead in the final seconds, Kennedy Meeks swatted a shot that led to a fast break, ending with Justin Jackson streaking down the court for a thunderous, one-handed slam.

The "Redemption Tour" was complete.

While Paige wasn't on the floor to celebrate, he's fine with it. His DNA was all over the trophy.

“I would have loved to be in that moment with those guys, but there's also a part of me that understands that that team needed to grow,” Paige said. “If I'm on the team, maybe Justin Jackson doesn't have the same role that he had that allowed him to be a first team All American. Maybe Joel Berry, maybe Theo Pinson isn't able to shine the same way.”

For Paige, the transition from heartbroken senior to proud spectator wasn't about resentment; it was about realizing that his final act had served as the necessary prologue for his teammates' greatest triumph.

“People have asked me, like, do you wish you're on that team?” Paige said. “I was like, No, that team was unique in its own way, and they did the things that they needed to do, and it was awesome to watch … that’s their story.”

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Where is Marcus Paige now?

Now back in Chapel Hill, Paige is mentoring the new era of North Carolina guards as an assistant coach of the Tar Heels. His first season, R.J. Davis was a first-team All-American and the ACC Player of the Year.

For Trimble, a four-year player at Carolina, having Paige back in the building has bridged the gap between his childhood idol and his daily mentor. Watching a legend walk the same halls — and hold him to the same standard — has brought to life what it really means to leave a lasting mark in Chapel Hill.

“It means the world to help anchor this team, to be a captain on this team, to be a four-year guy,” Trimble said. “You see guys like Marcus, Coby White, Joel Berry, Ty Lawson come in and make their mark, and you realize the legacy they left. It makes you itch to be a part of that.”

Fast forward to 2026, and Paige was front row to watch Trimble—a player he has mentored daily for three seasons as an assistant coach—knock down a legendary three-pointer with just 0.4 seconds remaining to stun Duke 71-68 in the Dean Dome.

Weeks before he etched his name into rivalry lore, Trimble was asked about the legacy he hoped to leave behind in Chapel Hill.

"Just that I was able to make a difference, right?" Trimbel said. "I want my legacy to be that I was a game-changer and a program builder. I want to show guys the 'Carolina Way' and helped us win. I know I'm not an all-time leading scorer, all-time leading assists, whatever. This team has a chance to be an all-time team, and I take pride in being a part of that. At the end of the day, I just want to know I made a difference and left the biggest impact on this school possible."

For a senior who stuck with the program for four years in an era of constant transfers, hitting a walk-off winner against Duke is the exclamation point on any career.

"It was perfect. He was the one," Hubert Davis said after the game. "Having a kid as accomplished as Seth stay at one school for four years... that shot was made by the perfect person at the right time. He’s deserving of being remembered forever because of the commitment and the devotion that he’s made to his teammates, to this program, to this university, and to this community. Couldn’t have gone to a better person."

Paige and Trimble have both hit iconic shots that will be remembered in Chapel Hill. Those are just two of the players that throughout the UNC basketball program know that being a North Carolina Tar Heel goes far beyond the years you play there. It’s about a standard of excellence that is measured in rafters and rings.

“At this place, winning trumps everything,” Paige said. “The championship teams are treated differently; they get a special reverence. It doesn’t matter if I was a better player than someone on the 2005, 2009, or 2017 teams—they won. What’s awesome about this place is that the things that should matter most, still do.”

It is that selfless perspective that defines Paige’s new chapter. Much like he once mentored a young Joel Berry II on how to lead a championship team, he has spent the last three years molding Trimble into the "game-changer" he is today. He isn't interested in protecting his own stats or his individual spot in the history books; he is obsessed with helping his players surpass them.

“I just want to be remembered as someone who cared about this place and tried to embody what it's all about,” Paige said. “I didn't care if I had zero points or 50 points; I just wanted to win. Now as a coach, I want to help these guys reach their goals and help this program continue to be what it's always been. That’s it—there’s nothing more to it.”

As the final horn echoed at the Dean Dome and the crowd stormed the floor, Paige didn't look at the rafters. He looked at Trimble and the current team having their moment —the next link in the long, line of Carolina blue.