Reynolds’ fateful basket may have been the final act of a gripping, back-and-forth game, but the various elements of that dramatic finish had been brewing for weeks and even months.

For a Pitt team that had spent the vast majority of its previous 35 games overwhelming and overpowering opponents, the Wildcats were a perfect foil. They had been through many of the same Big East slugfests and weren’t intimidated by Pitt’s physicality. They won the only previous meeting between the teams that season, 67-57, in the final college basketball game ever at Philadelphia’s Spectrum, a building that was so hot that day, ice water had to be poured down Levance Fields’ back to keep him cool.

Most of all, Villanova was a headache of a matchup for the Panthers. The Wildcats were teeming with quick guards and versatile big men who could stretch the floor and create a sense of discomfort for a Pitt team that, for all of its success, was a comparatively plodding group with a more traditional college lineup.

In the NCAA tournament, the two were placed in the same region, Pitt the No. 1 seed and Villanova the No. 3. The Wildcats faced little resistance on their way to the Elite Eight, routing UCLA by 20 in the second round and No. 2 seed Duke by 23 in the Sweet 16. The Panthers, meanwhile, looked vulnerable in a way they hadn’t for most of the season. They led No. 16 seed East Tennessee State by only two with fewer than four minutes remaining before winning by 10. The next round, it needed a late push to beat Oklahoma State by eight and needed every bit of Fields’ last-minute wizardry to eke by Xavier in the Sweet 16. That underwhelming run was perhaps an early indication that a team some believed was destined to earn the school’s first Final Four berth since 1941 wouldn’t do so.

Once in the Elite Eight, the Wildcats were the problematic opponent they projected to be, as Pitt never led by more than five and spent much of the night at Boston’s TD Garden playing from behind. Trailing by four with 20 seconds remaining, the Panthers scrambled to tie the game at 76 after a pair of free throws from Fields with 5.5 seconds to play.

Then it happened, a sequence of events and split-second decisions that sent one program into ecstasy and the other into agony.

Levance Fields throws his head band into the stands after Pitt's 78-76 loss to Villanova in the Elite Eight. (Elise Amendola/Associated Press)

After Fields’ second free throw swished through the net, Villanova’s Reggie Redding collected the ball and hopped behind the baseline. With Dixon tightly on Reynolds, Redding stood hesitantly, long enough to where several Pitt players and coaches believed a five-second violation would be called (by the time he released the ball, it was more like four seconds).

Believing the Panthers were close to forcing a turnover with their pressure, Dixon made an all-important move from lurking behind Reynolds to positioning himself at the Villanova junior’s left hip, standing between Reynolds and Redding and, as he saw it, denying the pass.

A seemingly innocent shuffling of the feet was the first domino of many that would fall.

“I think Jermaine, he was one of our more heady defenders,” Brandin Knight said. “We kind of gave him free reign. We didn’t have to coach him. He was so good on defense that you kind of just trusted what he did. I think even in that case, he thought we had a five-second [violation] and that him taking away the pass would help. It was one of those things that backfired.

“From there, it was like ‘Oh [crap], oh [crap],’ the whole way going to the basket.”

With his point guard seemingly unavailable, Redding lofted it to teammate Dante Cunningham, standing just beyond the top of the key with Sam Young at his back. From virtually the second the pass left Redding’s hands and with Dixon now behind him, Reynolds darted up court. The ball spent no more than a second in Cunningham’s hands, as he pitched it a few feet over to the sprinting Reynolds, with Dixon trailing him by a few feet and Young unable to get in his way in time.

As the clock ticked below four seconds, Reynolds had just 35 feet of flooring and two Pitt defenders between him and the basket. He crossed over to his left near the free-throw line to get by a flat-footed DeJuan Blair, leaving Brown, with Reynolds in front of him and a Villanova player on either side of him, as the lone remaining obstacle.

“I felt like I was on an island,” Brown said.

At that point, Brown had a bevy of options but all of a half-second to make a decision. He had earlier come off the man he was guarding and thought it was best to do whatever he could not to foul Reynolds. With a four-inch advantage on his 6-foot-2 foe, Brown stood tall in the lane, feet firmly set and arms held straight above his head (walling up, as he described it). Reynolds threw his body into Brown and hoisted up a soft runner that hung in the air before swirling through the net, sending himself and his teammates into a frenzy.