Virginia had a comfortable 10 point lead with 5 minutes to play. Then, Ty Jerome – who was lighting up the court missed a shot and in frustration reached in for the rebound and committed his fourth foul of the game.

With Virginia’s leading scorer for the game on the bench, Auburn’s Bryce Brown came to life. Brown hit three three-pointers down the stretch leading the Tigers to a 12-0 run and a 2 point lead. And with 30 seconds in the game, Ty Jerome missed a three-pointer and Auburn got the rebound. After a few seconds, Virginia realized the shot clock was off and they had to foul. But they had only 4 fouls. Fortunately for them, they had time to do it. And they sent Anfernee McLemore – a 60% free throw shooter – to the line. And McLemore coolly drained both FTs to give Auburn a 4 point lead.

Virginia rushes the ball up the court and somehow in the corner, closely guarded, Kyle Guy hits an amazing three pointer from the corner to make it a one point lead with 9 seconds.

So, Virginia fouls again – this time sending Jared Harper – the Tigers best FT shooter at 83.1% – to the line. Harper hits the first FT but misses the second one. But before Ty Jerome could sprint down the court with the defensive rebound, Samir Doughty fouled him. Auburn still had 2 fouls to give before sending them to the line and so he stopped Virginia from setting up their offense.

Then, a combination of controversy and over-coaching happened. The Auburn players planned to use that other foul. They got exactly what they wanted in Virginia having to pass the ball backwards to Jerome. Then, as Jerome tried to drive quickly up the court, he dribbles the ball off the back of his foot. He went back to pick it up and started dribbling again up court – realizing that there was only 2 second left, he got ready to heave a half court desparation shot.

But before he could shoot it, Bryce Brown fouled him using up Auburn’s last foul. This is the over-coaching part. They totally bailed Jerome and Virginia out. That half court heave was not going to go in – play good defense and you win the game. Instead, Virginia gets the ball at half court with the chance to set up one more shot.

Now the controversy – when Jerome bounced the ball off his heel, it wasn’t touched by an Auburn defender. When Jerome picked up the ball with both hands and started to dribble, it should have been a double dribble and a turnover. To be fair, this also might have been set up by the overcoaching. In real time and all the excitement, it was hard to realize that Jerome double dribbled – but the referee also was probably paying closer attention to the Auburn player who was getting ready to intentional foul.

But if this isn’t crazy enough, it gets worse for Auburn. That is because Virginia inbounds the ball into the corner to Kyle Guy, he puts up a three pointer before the buzzer to try to win the game, and misses. But as the buzzer is going off and some of the Auburn players trailing the play started to celebrate, many people had not heard the whistle. And that whistle happened because when Samir Doughty jumped to contest Guy’s shot, he jumped into Guy’s body and fouled him.

Now, Kyle Guy has a chance with 0.6 seconds left to win the game from the free throw line. And Virginia’s first-team All-ACC player calmly hit the first two free throws, was unsuccessfully iced by Auburn calling a timeout, and came back out to calmly drain the game-winning free throw. Auburn’s desparation pass down field got caught by an Auburn player but he couldn’t do anything with it – and Virginia is heading to the championship game with an improbable 63-63 victory.

It is kind of crazy that Virginia has twice been down with under 5 seconds left, been intentionally fouled, and that foul led to them winning the game. Maybe it was simply college basketball karma for their role in the FBI recruiting scandal that this game was taken away from Auburn in such heart-wrenching fashion. Or maybe it was simply college basketball karma paying the Cavaliers back for the rough ending last year of being the first 1 seed to lose to a 16 seed. Or maybe it was simply March Madness!!!

Whatever it was, it was a totally crazy way for the first semi-final to end. The ACC regular season champions from Virginia are heading to the National Championship. And giving completely new definitions to survive and advance.