Austin Rivers and His Shot to Beat North Carolina Should and Will Live on

As the seconds slowly and relentlessly ticked off the clock in the Dean Dome, counting down to the inevitable victory for the North Carolina Tar Heels in college basketball's biggest rivalry, Austin Rivers dribbled the ball patiently, biding his time. 

Five seconds and one ball-screen later, Rivers was guarded by Tyler Zeller and full of hesitant confidence that he could be the hero.

As Seth Curry screamed at him to get the shot off and Mason Plumlee wondered what in the world was taking the freshman so long to fire, Rivers calmly launched up a three-pointer over the outstretched arms of the much-taller Zeller and watched as the ball arced magnificently through the air and swished through the net for three points and a one-point victory for the Duke Blue Devils. 

The once-frenzied North Carolina faithful had fallen into a nervous hush for the brief time that the ball was in the air, but once it dropped down past the rim, a silence took over the crowd. it was a silence pregnant with grief, one normally reserved for funeral parlors and the cold landscape of outer space. 

If the onlookers in the Dean Dome had listened carefully, they may have heard the jubilant exaltations of their hated rivals just 10 miles away in Durham. But they weren't listening for that; they were instead clutching their distraught faces in their hands with various expressions of shock and disbelief. 

But on the Duke sideline, Mike Krzyzewski, the reserved coach of the Blue Devils, let his emotions get the best of him as he leapt into the air, jumping for joy as he celebrated alongside the sparse sections of Duke fans and the players who had fought so hard for the right to be in position to mob Rivers as he ran away to the other side of the court. 

But let's rewind a little bit and take a look back at how the hell we got ourselves into this situation. 

Duke hung tight with the favored home team for the first half before an 8-1 outburst put the game nearly out of reach to start the second half. The Blue Devils chipped away at the lead throughout those final 10 minutes or so, but every time they cut the deficit to single digits, a suddenly hot Harrison Barnes or some other Tar Heel would extend the league back into double figures. 

With an 82-72 lead and just 2:09 left to play, it was a matter of when and not whether North Carolina would finish off Duke. 

But then Tyler Thornton hit his first three-pointer in six attempts, Curry hit a long bomb (on a missed traveling violation, I might add) and Ryan Kelly hit a tough jump shot to follow up his own miss. That, coupled with turnovers and missed shots by the Tar Heels, cut the lead to just two points.

82-80. 

On the following possession, Zeller, a 78 percent free-throw shooter, knocked down just one of his two charity shots after drawing a foul on Mason Plumlee. It was Zeller's first step towards becoming the goat for the Tar Heels, but most assuredly not his biggest one.

83-80.  

Ryan Kelly took the shot for the Blue Devils on the opposite end of the court just after the missed free throw and the result was one of the weirdest plays I've ever seen in college basketball. During that oh-so-crucial situation, the normally sure-firing junior who is taking three-pointers at a 42.3 percent clip during the 2011-2012 campaign, fired up an air-ball.

Zeller, reacting as any player would, jumped up to try to grab the board, but instead deflected the orange sphere off the glass and down through the net for a Blue Devils' score. The referees had to convene to decide if the shot was worth two or three points, finally setting on the former over the latter.

83-82. 

The Tar Heels inbounded the ball for a final time and Thornton immediately fouled Zeller, sending him to the free-throw line with a shot at redemption. Zeller instead repeated his last trip to the line, draining the first shot and clanking the second of the rim. 

84-82. 

This is where the cocksure Rivers received the ball for the timeout-less Blue Devils and dribbled up to the left side of the court, right in front of the Duke bench. And that's when the scenario to start this article began. 

Bam.

85-84. Game over. 

In college basketball, there are plenty of opportunities to re-write history and create a legacy that will last forever. Excluding any exploits that may occur during March Madness, what Rivers did really can't be topped.

The Duke vs. North Carolina feud is the greatest rivalry in college basketball. And I say that with no disrespect to Kansas vs. Missouri, Xavier vs. Cincinnati, Syracuse vs. Georgetown and the other great rivalries of the sport. But these two schools have played a historic series filled with so much passion and hatred that it is arguably the greatest rivalry in all of sports, not just in college basketball. 

When a freshman stud for Duke plays the game of his life and caps it off with a moxy-filled shot to beat the buzzer and win the game by a point, in the Dean Dome, in a game that the Blue Devils weren't expected to win, with his dad watching from the stands...well, it doesn't really get any better than that.

Literally. It doesn't get any better.

We remember certain plays in sports for a long time. We remember where we were when the historic moments happen. I remember exactly which cushion I sprang off of to run around the room with my dad when Tiger Woods made his unforgettable chip on the 16th hole of Augusta National. I remember that I was on that very same cushion when I watched Michael Phelps come back to beat Ryan Lochte in the Olympics.

Something tells me that I'll remember letting loose a raucous "OHHHHHHH," one that was in no way premeditated, from a different cushion on Feb. 8.   

Only time will tell if we remember Rivers' shot in the same way that we do that of a former Blue Devil named Christian Laettner.

It was a different situation for sure, but it may become just as memorable because of its importance in this historic rivalry.

Only time will tell if we remember it. 

But we should.