Biggest shot of his life has elevated Sorrentine

01:00 AM EST on Saturday, March 19, 2005

WORCESTER -- There was only a minute left in overtime when T.J. Sorrentine made the biggest shot of his life.

Only a minute left, Vermont clinging to a one-point lead over heavily favored Syracuse, poised for one of the most unbelievable of upsets. And there was Sorrentine hitting a deep 3-pointer that is right out of adolescent fiction. In overtime. In the NCAA Tournament. The dagger that beat Syracuse. The kind of shot little kids dream about when they're shooting by themselves on some lonely playground, playing imaginary games in their head and dreaming of glory.

The biggest shot of his life.

"We were running the play and the shot clock was winding down," Sorrentine said afterward. "The coach was yelling for me to call a play and I said, 'No, no,' and just pulled up. I didn't know how deep it was, but I knew it was down. I had one more in me."

So it continues for T.J. Sorrentine, in this twilight of his great college career, in these waning days of what has been one of the best college basketball careers a Rhode Island kid has had in a long time.

For no one could have made up Sorrentine's story, even before last night. Did you ever hear about the frog who dreamed of being a king and then became one? Change the names and this is Sorrentine's basketball life.

It's all but become part of Rhode Island basketball lore now, how Sorrentine was one of those innumerable local kids whose head was full of basketball dreams, one of those innumerable kids who closed their eyes and saw themselves playing for either Providence College or URI, where the basketball lights are bright.

Except that it didn't happen.

Not that Sorrentine was really surprised when it didn't. He says he knew as early as the ninth grade that he never was going to be the biggest kid, or the quickest kid, never going to be the most athletic. He knew then it was going to take all those other things if he ever were going to see his dreams fulfilled. Things like hard work, will, heart, determination. All those words that hang on locker-room walls, all those words that became the articles of his faith.

Still, he was he kid no one believed in, the 5-foot-11 kid from St. Raphael Academy who eventually came to understand that neither PC nor URI had any interest in him. Just another kid deemed too small and not athletic enough. Just another kid judged and found wanting. So he went to Vermont, a place where Tom Brennan gave him the ball and told him it was his team.

The rest is history.

Player of the year in America East as a sophomore.

Someone who entered this season seventh in the country in career points among returning seniors, eighth in scoring average and second in free-throw percentage.

A career spent in the middle of a media explosion, the Catamounts becoming one of the best stories in all of college basketball, media darlings, and Sorrentine right in the middle of it.

For there is no overestimating the amazing story that's become Vermont basketball. The emergence of Taylor Coppenrath as a great player, arguably as big a sports hero in Vermont as the state has ever seen. The end of Tom Brennan's era at Vermont, the charismatic coach who ends his career out of the pages of some storybook, a man perceptive enough to know that few coaches ever get a chance to go out like he is going out. The lovefest that's been Vermont basketball the last few years, one of those once-in-a-lifetime stories for a small school in the middle of nowhere. And in the middle of it has been Sorrentine, the Pawtucket kid who went to Vermont and became a folk hero.

"I couldn't even have dreamed of this," he said in January. "When I first came here I was just going to work hard and see what happened."

Certainly, he couldn't have dreamed of last night. Vermont is not supposed to beat Syracuse. Not ever. Syracuse plays in the cavernous Carrier Dome. Vermont plays in a glorified high school gym. Syracuse plays in the Big East. Vermont plays in America East. Syracuse plays in the big time. Vermont plays in Vermont.

Yin and yang.

Two different basketball worlds.

But none of that mattered last night.

Not when Vermont battled the bigger and more athletic Syracuse team from the opening minutes, hanging in with a team it was not supposed to be able to hang in with, slowing it down, putting more and more pressure on Syracuse the longer they stayed in the game.

And in the end, in overtime, clinging to a one-point lead with only a minute left, the shot clock winding down, Sorrentine became the embodiment of every playground fantasy, every kid who shoots by himself while playing imaginary games in his head, dreaming of glory.

Truth be told, he hadn't had the greatest of shooting nights, had made only one jumper in the first half. But he is nothing if not resilient, and last night, when his team needed it most, he came through with the shot of the night.

"This is something everyone dreams about," he said, "but it doesn't happen to everyone. It just happened to happen to me. I guess all those hours in the gym paid off."

Yes, they did.

The biggest shot of his life.