ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – Cinderella’s greatest miracle came just before the stroke of midnight.

Down to its final tick of the clock, N.C. State turned an airball into a national championship, as sophomore Lorenzo Charles slammed home a missed desperation jumper by Dereck Whittenburg to give the Wolfpack a 54-52 victory over top-ranked Houston and a national championship for the ages Monday night.

Whittenburg, out of options as the clock marched towards zero, grabbed a nearly errant pass out of the hands of Houston’s Benny Anders and let fly a 27-foot jumper that ended up nearly a foot short of its target.

That’s when Charles, a sophomore from Brooklyn who had matured greatly over the final six weeks of the season, grabbed the ball and stuffed it through the basket as time expired, ending the Cougars’ 26-game winning streak and proving wrong all the doubters who said Jim Valvano and his Cardiac Pack had no chance against Akeem Olajuwon, Clyde Drexler and company.

“I knew when Whitt let the ball go that it was going to be short,” Charles said. “I didn’t know where Akeem was, just that he was behind me. I knew I was the closest one to the basketball. I just went up and dunked it.”

It was only the third slam of the game, which was supposed to showcase Houston’s high-flying Phi Slama Jama offense that raced through 52-team bracket by out-dunking its competition. On this night, however, the Wolfpack had twice as many as the Cougars: one by senior Thurl Bailey to open the Wolfpack’s scoring on the night and the one by Charles to win the game.

Charles, who has broken out of his shell in recent weeks, made the heads-up play that Olajuwon, Houston’s 7-foot center, didn’t make.

“The last thing I told him in our last time out was ‘Don’t leave that bucket,’” Lewis said when asked about Olajuwon’s presence on the final play. “But to be honest, I don’t know where he was.”

The NCAA’s first game-winning shot on the last play of a championship game in 20 years set off a celebration at University Arena, known locally as “The Pit,” and back home in Raleigh, where an estimated 10,000 revelers stormed the Brickyard and Hillsborough Street.

On the court, Valvano raced onto the court to hug his players, who had guided the 37-year-old New Yorker to his first career championship with a series of comeback miracles. Shortly afterwards, after cutting down their strands of the net, sophomore Cozell McQueen and freshman Ernie Myers climbed on top of the backboard to claim their spot on the top of the college basketball world.

The Wolfpack did it in a fashion that, by now, is practically cliché, forcing a talented team to buckle at the free throw line in the final stages of the game. The Cougars, a poor-shooting team that made just 61.1 percent of its free throws on the season, hit just 10 of their 19 free throws in the championship game.

In the final four minutes, the Cougars missed three of five free throws, including the front end of two one-and-one opportunities. The biggest miss of all came with 1:05 remaining, with the game tied at 52-52. Houston freshman Alvin Franklin could have given his team the lead with a one-and-one opportunity at the line. With Lewis crouched on the sideline, sucking on his red-and-white checkered tea towel, Franklin grimaced when he put up a free throw that badly missed to the right.

“People said all year that free throws would eventually do us in,” said Houston senior Michael Young. “I have to admit that in the end it finally did.”

The ball bounced long off the rim and into the hands of McQueen, who nearly stepped out of bounds as he wrestled teammate Bailey for the ball.

The Wolfpack brought the ball up the court and dribbled off some time until Valvano called timeout with 44 seconds to play, primarily to insert sophomore shooter Terry Gannon into the lineup for McQueen, a move he has made throughout this improbable post-season run. Houston surprised the Wolfpack with a 2-3 zone trap, forcing a painful possession in which N.C. State nearly lost the ball on at least three passes.

On the final pass, Houston's Benny Anders nearly tipped the ball out of Whittenburg’s hands, and would have had time to go in for an uncontested game-winner had he grabbed possession. But Whittenburg grabbed the ball and desperately flung the ball toward the basket.

“I didn’t want us to go into overtime without getting a shot off, so I put it up,” said Whittenburg, who hit several jumpers from nearly that same distance in the second half. “I really didn’t know where the goal was, or how far away I was. All I know is when I looked up, Lorenzo had the ball.”

Charles, who had scored but one basket in the game until then, did not have time to land and go back up for another shot, so he slammed home the game winner, the looked sheepishly around to see if the ACC officiating crew of Hank Nichols, Joe Forte and Paul Housman would call goal-tending on the play.

They didn’t, and the Wolfpack began celebrating while the Cougar players dropped to their knees, devastated at losing in the Final Four for the third time in the last four years. For the Wolfpack, it began a joyous celebration of the school's second national title.