NEW YORK -- One shot potentially changed the fate of one team's NCAA Tournament chances and might have sent another's emotions spiraling downward.
One shot.
That's where we are right now in the most tenuous times of bubble week.
Syracuse senior guard Gerry McNamara -- the most maligned lead guard in the country despite his habit of coming up big at the most opportune times -- hit a 3-pointer with five-tenths of a second left to beat Cincinnati 74-73 in the Big East Tournament's first round at Madison Square Garden Wednesday afternoon.
Syracuse was jubilant, suddenly feeling as if it has a real shot to be in the field of 65. Cincinnati, still saying it should be in, nonetheless was crushed by the last-second loss.
"It's like Christmas, but there's nothing downstairs," Cincinnati senior forward Eric Hicks said. "You're excited and then you go and ... nothing. I don't know what to say."
The questions that followed the game are real: Did the shot really put Syracuse into the NCAA Tournament field? And did it put Cincinnati on the outside looking in?
Here are the two schools of thought from each side -- two locker rooms with, as you can imagine, two decidedly different tones.
The win put Syracuse at 20-11 overall, handed the Orange their eighth Big East win and gave them a 2-1 mark against the Bearcats this season. It might not have disguised the ugly 39-point loss at DePaul last week, but it did help hide a bit of the blemish.
The team's overall strength of schedule was at No. 6 going into the game, and the Orange play No. 1 Connecticut in Thursday's quarterfinals -- the Orange's fifth game against Connecticut or Villanova this season (they've lost the first four). So, as Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim said after Wednesday's game, their RPI is going to climb. Still, Boeheim isn't convinced the Orange is getting into the field (without beating UConn). He privately fears the Orange will get, shall we say, hosed here.
Cincinnati entered the game with an RPI of 31 -- 12 spots ahead of Syracuse. The Bearcats (19-11, 8-8 regular season) had the nation's No. 4 SOS prior to the game.
"Our RPI could be the same as Cincinnati [on Thursday], but it shouldn't be [either Syracuse or Cincinnati]," Boeheim said. "They should be in and so should we. Everything is pretty close with them, and we beat them twice. We could be in the 30s, and I've never heard of a team from a major conference with an RPI like that not getting in."
Boeheim said he thought the game -- and maybe the Orange's tournament chances -- were over when UC freshman point guard Devan Downey stole an inbounds pass intended for Eric Devendorf with 8.3 seconds left after James White's corner jumper gave the Bearcats a 72-71 lead.
"I didn't know what to think at that point," Devendorf said of the Orange's chances after they had led by 14 at one point in the second half.
Downey went to the line and made the first free throw but missed the second, leaving the Bearcats with a two-point lead. Cincinnati had a foul to give, but UC interim coach Andy Kennedy said they committed it too early, fouling with 6.2 seconds left. That allowed a sideline out-of-bounds play for the Orange near midcourt. The ball went right to McNamara, who was supposed to be denied the ball but wasn't. He dribbled up court, split two defenders and floated up a 3-pointer from the top of the key.
"When Gerry got where he got and let it go, I said it was going in," Boeheim said.
"[It was] the highest of the highs and the lowest of the lows," McNamara said of his range of emotions before and after the shot.
Did McNamara shoot the Orange into the NCAA Tournament?
"I hope so, I really do," McNamara said. "I felt like it was us or them or both. We're 2-1 against them and hopefully it means something, since the third one was on a neutral court. I know one thing -- we don't want to be sitting at home watching the NCAAs."
McNamara said he knew the Orange's "backs were against the wall" after the loss at DePaul, a game that he said was as poor defensively as Syracuse has played.
"Syracuse is not a 39-point loser to anybody," McNamara said. "That's not Syracuse. That's not what Jim Boeheim built."
Boeheim said McNamara has hit more game-winning shots than anyone he can remember at Syracuse.
"The kid has no fear, he's unbelievable, a warrior like I've never seen," Boeheim said.
But was it enough?
"If you're on the [selection] committee and you look at two teams, you should say who would win," Boeheim said. "That's what I would do."
And, of course, he says the Orange would win against these so-called mid-major bubble teams. But where does that leave the Bearcats?
"I think we're in," Hicks said. "We could very easily go out and beat these other teams. Look at the A-10 -- the No. 1 team in that conference is George Washington. I mean, we match up well with them. They're no Villanova or UConn or Syracuse. I just feel we're a tournament team, no doubt."
White, who had one of the best games of his career with 32 points, said he thought the Bearcats had won the game after Downey's steal and free throw. And, like everyone else, he said the Bearcats should be in the NCAA field.
"If you look at our body of work, at the end of the day, one thing the committee talks about is strength of schedule and who you played and where did you play and do you have quality road wins," Kennedy said. "We did. We won at Vandy, beat a good Miami of Ohio team, beat LSU on a neutral court. We've got quality wins in league [at Marquette and at Syracuse]. I'm not on the selection committee, but in my mind we're one of the 34 best at-large teams in the country."
One shot might have tipped the balance either way. We won't know until Sunday if the shot mattered as much as it seemed Wednesday.
Andy Katz is a senior writer for ESPN.com.