Justin Thomas and Syracuse were still standing at the end.
AP

NEW YORK -- In the end, there was Syracuse's Eric Devendorf, catching a tipped, full-court baseball pass from Paul Harris in the right corner, launching a three beyond the outstretched arm of UConn's Gavin Edwards, watching it swish after time expired in regulation, then climbing atop a table in press row, and screaming. This was a brilliant finish, a fantastic buzzer-beater at the end of a broken play at the end of a well-played game: Syracuse 74, UConn 71.

And then we learned that this would not be the end, nor would it even be close.

They checked the tape, slowed it down to the last frame, saw the last fraction of the last dimple of the ball still in Devendorf's hand as the backboard lights went red, and the clock showed zeroes. With all of Madison Square Garden on its feet and on pins and needles, referee John Cahill turned away from the scorer's table and with two motions of his arms, waved it off.

The Neverending Game unfolded from there, on the night that March Madness truly began in 2009, at the Big East Tournament. It took three hours and 46 minutes, beginning at 9:36 p.m. Thursday and ending at 1:22 a.m. Friday, and it spanned six overtimes and 209 shots for 244 points. It was the second-longest game in the history of Division I basketball. Syracuse would finally win, 127-117, but only after the magnetic force that kept pulling the score back to even made like the players on the floor, and succumbed to extreme exhaustion.

In the end of the first overtime, Kemba Walker, the UConn freshman guard whose putback tied the game at 71-71 with 1.1 seconds left in regulation, launched a three from the left wing, and watched sail off the mark. In the end of the second overtime, Walker once again had the ball in his hands, and heaved a 40-footer from the Madison Square Garden logo that went off the back rim. Huskies center Hasheem Thabeet cradled the ball in his hands after it fell from air. He seemed to be holding on for dear life -- but it was the force of a magical game that wouldn't let go of them.

With 11 seconds left in the third overtime, Orange guard Andy Rautins hit a three to re-tie the score at 98-98, and Huskies forward Jeff Adrien missed a putback at the gun. It was then that Syracuse guard Jonny Flynn -- who would play an unbelievable 67 minutes, more than any other player, and admit afterward that he couldn't feel his legs -- leaned over and rested his arms on press row, incredulous that the night refused to end. "C'mon!" he said. "We need this more than they do!" Both teams were safely in the NCAA tournament, but Flynn was right: the Orange could have used a seeding boost. The PA at the Garden played After Midnight. It was 12:38 a.m.

When they finished the fourth overtime -- with Orange forward Paul Harris missing a point-blank shot, rebounding it and getting blocked by Gavin Edwards at the horn, and the score 104-104 -- Flynn ripped off his headband in disgust and fired it into the crowd, nearly all of whom were standing in various postures of disbelief: Hands on heads. Jaws agape. Cell phones out, calling friends on the outside, just to say they were THERE. Flynn said he thought to himself, "Lord, let's just get this game over, go home. Whoever wins, wins." But the show had to go on.

The PA played Late In the Evening, and then announcer came on to say, "Ladies and Gentlemen, you are now presently watching the longest game in Big East tournament history." It was 12:47 a.m.

When they finished the fifth overtime, with the score 110-110 -- the two teams had once again managed six points each in five minutes -- Flynn found his way to press row for a second time, and just shook his head, saying, "This is crazy." Thabeet, UConn's dominant defensive force, had fouled out in that fifth OT, finishing with 19 points, 14 rebounds, six blocks, and six straight tip-offs won. He was one of eight players to be disqualified, four coming from each team. The PA played You Shook Me All Night Long. Fans began pulling out cameras, not to take pictures of the players but rather of the scoreboard, for it was one of the strangest they'd ever seen.

It read that the game was in the seventh period, going into the eighth. It was 1:04 a.m.

The Garden had a distinct smell -- a rank odor of 13 hours' worth of stale beer and body odor and spent emotion -- by the time they began the sixth overtime. Fans were hoarse, pleading with their teams for a fitting dénouement. The lineups were products of attrition. Syracuse's consisted of starters Flynn, Harris and Rautins, and reserves Kris Joseph and Justin Thomas, a senior who had played his first two minutes of the game at the end of the fifth overtime, when Devendorf fouled out. UConn's featured starters A.J. Price, Craig Austrie, and Adrien, and reserves Edwards and Scottie Haralson. With Thabeet on the bench, Harris won the Orange's first tip, and Rautins quickly hit a three, making the score 113-110. It soon became evident that this was where the madness would stop. Syracuse pulled away to a 118-110 lead, and eventually won 127-117.

Flynn finished with 34 points, 11 assists and no headband. The buzzer sounded, and Harris still had one on, so he ripped it off and flung it deep into the crowd beyond the baseline, with drops of sweat cascading over 15 rows of Garden patrons. Everyone on the floor staggered through the handshake line, and the PA man said, "Have a safe trip home, and good morning." By then, it was 1:22 a.m.

In the press conference afterwards, Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim said that this was "history, tonight." But, because the Orange had a semifinal date with West Virginia in just 19 hours, he added, "It would have been a lot better if they had just counted Eric's shot, and we could have gone home two hours ago."

There's no way it would have been better, Jim. The only D-I game ever to run longer happened on Dec. 21, 1981, when Cincinnati beat Bradley in seven overtimes -- and because it was in the pre-shot-clock era, the final score was just 75-73. That would have been excrutiating. This, here, was a classic, likely the greatest game in which any of the Huskies or Orange will ever play. None of them will forget The Night They Went 70 Minutes At The Garden. History-making always trumps rest, and exhaustion is a worthy sacrifice for the cause of creating a basketball epic.