UNC men's basketball senior trio still hanging on

DURHAM — Marcus Paige likes brownies.

Not those prepackaged, plastic-wrapped bricks, though. And definitely no nuts. But fresh out of the oven, the ones that crumble in your hands when you pick them up. Yeah, those are the ones.

Paige takes another bite out of his. He’s in the auxiliary gym at Northern High School in Durham. Not exactly his normal postgame dive — or snack for that matter.

But here he is, as part of the 2016 ACC Barnstorming Tour. The tour features ACC seniors from across the state, including North Carolina’s trio: Paige, Brice Johnson and Joel James. The group moves from town to town, playing pickup basketball and fooling around one last time together. They’ll even head to Paige’s hometown of Marion, Iowa, next week.

But fooling around was the key Thursday. The game was more performance than practice.

Toddlers dunked — after Johnson picked them up, of course. And Paige shot half-court shots because, well, if ever there was a time, this was it.

James, all 6-foot-11 of him, lost a 3-point contest to Duke’s Marshall Plumlee, but he entered a 3-point contest nonetheless.

He even made two.

But ultimately, Thursday was about more than a game. Or brownies. It was about three players who led a team to the brink of everything, in spite of all the obstacles and roadblocks in their way. It was about playing again, finding the fun, even after everything that happened to them.

P.J. Hairston’s saga. NCAA scandal. Coach Dean Smith’s death.

And now, losing the national championship game 77-74 to Villanova.

Yet here they were, in their warmups and oversized black Barnstormers uniforms. They came out early and stayed late to sign autographs — this is how they will be remembered.

“It’s not like I can go back and change it,” Paige says. “Still have to be happy with what we did this year.”

And yes, he’s seen the shots — both of them. First his, the leaning, off-balanced 3-point shot that somehow tied the national championship game at 74 with 4.7 seconds left.

“I don’t think I’ll ever shoot a shot like that again,” he says. “I don’t really want to because then I’ve gotta think about what else happened in the game.”

There’s the hard part — the counter. It’s impossible to avoid, he says, with all the replays and reactions and general shock. He’s watched it over and over, the team he saved just seconds earlier falling in his last ever game.

“I know it happened, so it is what it is,” he says. “I’m actually friends with a couple of guys on their team, so I see them — I follow them on Twitter — and we’re good friends, so I still get reminded of it a lot.

“But it’s not like I can go back and change it.”

All he can do is move on, as he is. He can prep for the upcoming NBA draft and enjoy his last month in college.

And he can eat brownies. After everything he’s been through the past four seasons, he’s earned at least that.

@BrendanRMarks

sports@dailytarheel.com