People who stayed up late enough Monday night were treated to a spectacular finish in the NCAA championship game between Villanova and the University of North Carolina, courtesy of a buzzer-beater from 3 point-land by Kris Jenkins, a 6’6″ Villanova junior who beat the odds — and amazingly, his own adoptive brother, UNC guard Nate Britt.

In a game of mental and physical toughness on the part of both teams as well as a refreshing lack of coaching timeouts, it all came down to the last 4.7 seconds. UNC’s Marcus Paige swished a 3-pointer to tie it up at 74-all.

That’s where Jenkins positioned himself to make history.

This faith-inspired athlete, who follows Twitter accounts like @Bible_time and @athletes4God, got ready to close the lid once and for all on UNC.

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“The defenders usually follow the ball,” Jenkins told USA Today of the final plays of the game. “They were going to try to take Arch [his teammate, Ryan Arcidiacono] away because he’s hit big shots in his career. When they all followed the ball, I just knew if I got in his line of vision, he would find me.”

“If I could get a shot, I was going to shoot it,” the 22 year-old Arcidiacono told the paper, confirming what UNC was likely thinking. “But I heard someone screaming in the back of my head. It was Kris. I just gave it to him and he let it go with confidence.”

“Arch! Arch! Arch!” Jenkins was screaming, calling for the rock.

The rest is March Madness history — and what many are saying is the best NCAA championship game in history.

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The Villanova hero, Jenkins, has not only come a long way in the game, but in life, firmly rooted in faith and family. A graduate of Gonzaga College High School in Washington, D.C., he is lucky enough to have two families — the one that is raising him, the Britt family, and his biological family, the Jenkinses, who made the ultimate sacrifice to give their son better opportunities with another loving family.

As a boy growing up, Kris Jenkins loved playing basketball on an amateur circuit, but his parents’ separation and the subsequent moves that he and his mom made interrupted his childhood. The family ultimately found itself in Columbia, South Carolina, where Kris Jenkins started middle school — and then immediately faltered.

“I just didn’t think he was making right decisions in allowing the right people in his circle,” Felicia Jenkins, Kris’ mom, told the Philadelphia Inquirer. “He’s such a verbally personable guy, and a lot of people can hide in your circle without people knowing what they’re all about.”

The last straw for her, Felicia Jenkins said, was when a hall monitor at his middle school saw her son on his cell phone and asked him to hand it over. He wouldn’t.

“Way out of his character,” she told the paper. “And he wasn’t making all A’s and B’s like he’s doing now.”

Felicia and Kelvin Jenkins, Kris’ parents, had seen Nate Britt Senior — the father of UNC guard Nate Britt — three years earlier during a tournament in Florida. Britt Sr. was then coaching his son’s basketball team.

“I looked at the character of each kid that played for Coach Nate,” Felicia Jenkins told the Inquirer. “Those kids just possessed a different personality. Their character was cut from a different edge. Nate always made sure the guys were in line, including his son.”

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And she knew from personal experience that one’s coaching style can mirror one’s true character. Felicia Jenkins, as it happened, was also a coach — the head women’s basketball coach at a Division II college in South Carolina at the time.

So she picked up the phone to call the coach she had respected — and asked him a life-changing question.

“Look, my big guy down here — this is what’s going on,” she remembers telling him. “He needs to be around better people so he can start understanding what better decision-making is about.”

“It was really surprising,” Britt Sr. later told the Charlotte Observer of the request. “When someone reached out to me about their 10-year-old son, and I could see that he was an exceptional talent — but, you know, we had a family. And I had a young daughter. And you just don’t know how things — they could go bad, you just don’t know. I just believed. I took a step out there on faith and just believed.”

One thing led to another, and in 2007 Jenkins and Britt became brothers under the same roof when the Britts made it official and became legal guardians of Kris Jenkins. The boys grew up together in Maryland, outside of Washington, D.C., never dreaming they would become opponents one day at college hoop’s biggest matchup.

The players loved and supported each other throughout this year’s competition. Jenkins watched North Carolina’s game against Notre Dame in the East Regional final, sitting behind the Tar Heels’ bench. The brothers hugged and took selfies on the court after Carolina’s win.

“It was a special moment,” Jenkins told the New York Times. “I told [Nate] how proud I was of him. And that we need to keep it going so we could get to the point we’re at now.”

The two players did not speak after that game — each getting in the zone for the ultimate competition in the final on Monday night. One brother won, of course, while the other consoled himself with a great effort.

For Kris Jenkins, the victor, family is front and center. “I’m really blessed and fortunate to have two families,” Jenkins told the Times. “I really do. I owe them everything. They don’t look at it that way, but that’s how I look at it.”

Basketball is the boys’ glue, and it binds the family together, too. Of Nate Britt, Jenkins told the Observer, “We’re not blood, but anything closer than that, that’s what we are.”

The day after the big game, when Jenkins could have re-tweeted anything about his success, he chose to re-tweet @Bible_Time’s Twitter post, which read: “No matter how things look, know that God is still in control. Stay in peace, knowing that He will always be with you.”

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