PITTSBURGH -- Oklahoma rallied in the final minutes to push the first game of the 2018 NCAA Tournament into overtime, so Trae Young's college career lasted five minutes longer than it might have. And he was the last Sooner through the handshake line, so maybe even a minute or two more.

It did not end in glory, although that seemed a given for a team seeded 10th in the Midwest Region. It did not have to end Thursday, though.

"So close," Rayford Young, Trae's father, whispered to Sporting News when it was over. By definition, he was right. The final score was 83-78 in favor of Rhode Island, but it was a 2-point game inside the final 50 seconds of OT that had the capacity crowd at PPG Paints arena rocking.

Chosen last week by Sporting News as a first-team All-American and Freshman of the Year, Young scored 28 points and passed for seven assists against Rhody (26-7). Rams coach Danny Hurley, who played for Seton Hall in the 1990s against some of the game’s greatest legends, was blown away by what he’d seen from Trae in preparing for this and coaching against him.

“We knew he would make some incredibly tough shots,” Hurley said. “The kid has no weakness and it’s going to be an amazing NBA career ahead for him. It was a pleasure to – I played against Allen Iverson and Ray Allen in college, and Alonzo Mourning. It’s a pleasure to be on the court with a guy that good and that great and compete against him.”

Young did what he could to help Oklahoma advance. Not all that he could, perhaps, but all that he could without risking the wrath of those who looked at his 19 shots per game and judged that total to be extravagant. He attempted 18 shots against Rhody (26-7) and made half of them. His teammates attempted 51 shots and made 20. You don’t have to do the math on that. It’s there in the final score.

“That’s a part of my game that I matured at this year,” Young said. “There was a time, even in the Oklahoma State game that went into overtime. I tried to shoot us to win, and that didn’t happen. So this time I tried to make the right play, and it just didn’t work out. We just came up short. I just tried to make the right play.”

That Young referenced the OK State game that occurred in Stillwater in late January underscores what an fateful point that was for his and the Sooners’ season. To that point, he’d been playing with an almost unprecedented degree of freedom and thriving on it. He’d taken more than 20 shots in six games, and OU had won five of them.

When he shot 39 times and scored 48 points at Gallagher-Iba Arena and OU lost in overtime, though, the backlash from basketball analysts was so severe he all but apologized for what occurred following his next game.

“He had an interesting year,” coach Lon Kruger said. “Probably as interesting as anyone can have.”

Following that weekend, the joy that once seemed so contagious among the Sooners leaked from their play. They won just four of the 14 games that remained before Selection Sunday, and thus became one of the teams whose inclusion in this event was most profoundly criticized.

“We weren’t focused on that. We don’t need any extra motivation,” Young told Sporting News. “We just wanted to come out here and play for Sooner Nation and play for ourselves and play for our families. We don’t care about what’s all going on outside of this.”

Were that entirely true, Young might not have been giving up the ball so easily during and after scoring eight of Rhody’s final 14 points in regulation and their first two free throws in OT. He did twice attempt 3-pointers from long range in the extra period when Rhody chose to trap off ball screens to force him back. The percentages were with Young there; he’s going to make his fair share of those shots, and if he missed OU would be rebounding 4-on-3. But they didn’t get either one.

With OU up a point and 2:07 left, Sooners guard Rashard Odomes took a feed from Young, drove toward the lane and threw a pass over the sideline. After E.C. Matthews nailed a 3-pointer to put the Rams up 2, Kristian Doolittle got the ball and missed a layup. That’s how it went for Oklahoma.

In the final month of the season, the Sooners closed with eight losses – by a combined 100 points – over 10 games. When the made their cameo last week at the Big 12 Tournament, they trailed by 11 after 20 minutes and never really challenged in the second half.

Against the Rams, OU rallied from seven points down with 5:45 remaining to push the game into an extra period – surviving a buzzer-beating putback attempt from Rhody star Jared Terrell that rolled across the rim but chose not to fall through the goal. The end came eventually in overtime, but it came more proudly.

“This team fought hard. We could have won late in that game. We had a chance,” Young said. “But they also had a chance, and they just made a few more shots than us. That’s just how it goes, but I’m proud of the way our team fought.”

This obviously was the final game in an OU uniform for the team’s lone senior, Khadeem Lattin, who appeared in the 2016 Final Four. “This lost hurts a little bit more,” Odomes told SN. “That’s not the way we way we wanted to send Deem out, his last game.”

There is little doubt this also will be the end for Young as a collegian, although he deflected questions about his NBA draft early entry plans and offered no more than he would be discussing the issue with his family in the next week or so.

“We learned a lot from him,” Oklahoma junior guard Christian James said. “He’s a great human being all around. I’m happy for him, whatever he does, whether he comes back or he goes to the league.”

And if he does leave, how will he be remembered in Norman?

“OU legend, I would say,” James said. “He scored almost 900 points on the season. Who’s doing that as a freshman?”