01:00 AM EST on Monday, March 21, 2005

WORCESTER -- So it ended.

The wonderful college career of T.J. Sorrentine, the 5-foot-11 Pawtucket kid who has written his own little chapter in the history of Rhode Island basketball, the former St. Raphael All-Stater who took his basketball dreams to Vermont five years ago and saw them all come true.

It ended with the seconds clicking off the clock here at the DCU Center and on the wrong end of a 72-61 score. Ended with him having scored 26 points, the reason Vermont stayed in the game as long as it did. Ended with him having a great game in a losing effort, a game in which Michigan State's size and athleticism eventually trumped Vermont's heart.

Before that happened, though, he had a first half that showed everyone what all the fuss was about, a stretch when it became his ball and his game, a stretch when he was off in some private place where all your dreams come true.

A fallaway 3-pointer from out top. Then another. Then a mid-range jumper off a nifty move along the baseline, followed by a deep three off the dribble that was a thing of beauty, then a drive through what seemed the entire Michigan State team.

Was Sorrentine going to beat Michigan State all by himself?

For a while it seemed like maybe he was, as he had a first half that seemed to pick up from his deep shot Friday night that beat Syracuse, as if the NCAA Tournament had become his personal field of dreams.

Until reality entered the game. The cold reality that America East teams beat Big Ten teams about as often as elephants jump over the moon.

So it ended.

But to dwell on yesterday is to miss the point. Yesterday was just the curtain coming down on the greatest of plays, the afternoon the lights got turned off and the theater went dark. Nothing else. Every great story has to have an ending. Yesterday was Sorrentine's.

But sing no sad songs for the Catamounts, who became the darlings of this tournament, the team that came out of nowhere to beat Syracuse Friday night, the kind of game that gives this tournament a great name, a reaffirmation that Cinderella never grows old and dreams never die. For three years now Vermont has been everything that's good about college basketball, a team that rallied a state, went to three straight NCAA Tournaments and then upset Syracuse as an exclamation point.

And sing no sad songs for Sorrentine.

How many 5-11 kids see their basketball dreams come true? How many kids who grew up in the Rhode Island Interscholastic League see their college careers end on national television in the NCAA Tournament?

Sorrentine knew he never could have planned that five years go.

"I just wanted to go and work hard and see what happened," he once said.

Work hard and see what happened. That was the only game plan. Not NCAA appearances. Not playing on ESPN. Not being written up in national magazines. Not being part of his amazing basketball journey at Vermont, one that even a Hollywood scriptwriter would probably have dismissed as too hokey.

Or as Vermont coach Tom Brennan said afterwards, "Nobody has ever done anything more in Vermont that has meant more to more people than these kids. That's their legacy. That's what they will be remembered for. These guys will be heroes forever."

But all that was a little too much in the future for Sorrentine yesterday.

"Maybe a few years down the road I'll look back and see what we accomplished," he said.

He was standing outside the Vermont locker room in the DCU Center, disappointed certainly, but already aware that life goes on. A couple of months ago he'd said that he never could have envisioned his career when he first went to Vermont five years ago. Yesterday he reiterated that.

How could he not?

He's had a great career, one no one ever expected him to have.

This weekend was just the exclamation point.

"The other night after we beat Syracuse I looked up and saw my father in the stands," he said. "It's one of those moments I'll remember the rest of my life."

For careers end.

But memories are forever.