Trailing Vanderbilt by one point with just 14.4 seconds left, Georgetown got the ball to Big East player of the year Jeff Green and let him go to work. Receiving the ball at the free throw line, Green spun through two defenders and banked in the game-winning shot to give Georgetown the 66-65 victory in the East Region semifinals.

“He is our best player, so we gave it to him and said, `Take us to the next round,'” said sophomore guard Jessie Sapp said of the final play. Sapp had six points and three assists,

The captain did just as his teammates asked, leading the second-seeded Hoyas (29-6) to their first Elite Eight appearance since 1996. Georgetown will face top-seeded North Carolina (31-6), which defeated Southern California 74-64 in the late game in East Rutherford on Friday night.

Green’s game-winning play – which was supposed to be a backdoor cut to junior forward Patrick Ewing Jr. – was almost botched when Green dropped the ball, but he recovered it and kept his poise, calmly hitting the pull-up bank shot with 2.5 seconds left on the clock.

“When I went into my move, I kind of fumbled it a little bit,” Green said of the final play. “Hurried up, tried to find it, pick it up. Just tried to get it up off the glass and it went in.”

On replays it appeared that Green switched his pivot foot on the game-winning basket, but none of the officials called the traveling violation and Green denied any wrongdoing after the game.

“No,” he said when asked about picking up his foot. “There were a lot of guys in there. I probably got pushed. They didn’t call it. The play was good, and that’s all I can say.”

Vanderbilt Head Coach Ken Stallings also downplayed the possible missed call.

“It looked like we had him covered up, and I’m certainly not going to take away from the dignity of this game,” Stallings said. “I haven’t seen the replay. Don’t care to. He made a great shot. The officials didn’t see anything, so there must not have been anything. The young man made a terrific play, and we’re just disappointed that the ball went in the basket.”

Sixth-seeded Vanderbilt led for much of the game, going up by 13 in the first half and taking a 32-24 lead into halftime. The Commodores were hot at the beginning of the contest, hitting four three-pointers within a three-minute stretch as part of a 12-1 run. Led by senior guard Dan Cage’s 11 points and 3-for-6 shooting from behind the arc, Vanderbilt looked to have corrected all the problems it had with Georgetown when the Hoyas beat the Commodores 86-70 on Nov. 15.

But out of the break the Hoyas played with renewed intensity and cut the lead to just two within the first two minutes. Junior center Roy Hibbert, who had just three points in the first half, scored four points as Georgetown opened with a 7-1 run and got back into the game.

Yet neither team would pull away, and coming into the final minute Georgetown led by just one, 62-61. Junior guard Jonathan Wallace hit one of his two three-pointers as the clock hit 60 seconds to give the Hoyas a four-point lead, but the Commodores went 4-for-4 from the free-throw line in the final minute and it took Green’s bank shot to get the win for the Hoyas, their seventh straight and 18th in 19 games.

“I feel very proud of this group of guys just because of how we have progressed, how we are winning games,” Georgetown Head Coach John Thompson III said. “The group, everyone out there is sticking together. Collectively we’re figuring out how to win games. So that makes me extremely happy, extremely proud.”

Vanderbilt had a last-second chance for the win, but junior guard Alex Gordon’s half-court three went nowhere as Green contested it to thwart Vanderbilt’s bid to clinch an Elite Eight bid.

Georgetown was paced by Green and freshman forward DaJuan Summers, who each finished with 15. Hibbert tallied a double-double in 27 minutes of play, finishing with 12 points and 10 rebounds – most of which came in the second half – before fouling out with 3:58 left in the game.

The Commodores were led by Cage and senior swingman Derrick Byars, the SEC player of the year, who each notched 17 points. Junior swingman Shan Foster was the only other Vanderbilt player in double digits, collecting 16.

After shooting a meager 33.3 percent in the first half, the Hoyas shot more like they have this season in the second, hitting 53.1 percent of their shots, including 60 percent of their three-point attempts. The Commodores shot 46.2 percent from the field – and 40 percent from downtown – in the first half before they were held to just 36 percent shooting overall and 25 percent from behind the arc in the second period.

“We just had to be more aggressive with them,” Green said of the Hoyas’ defensive adjustments in the second half. “They were getting a lot of open threes in the first half. So coming in the second half, we just had to put more pressure on the ball, not let them get that open on the three-point line.”

The bigger Hoyas also dominated the glass, collecting 40 rebounds to the Commodores’ 26. Vanderbilt had 17 assists on its 21 baskets and just five turnovers while hitting six more free throws than Georgetown, but as they have often done this season, the Hoyas defied the statistics to come away with the win.

“I just think that was a really good college basketball game, and we were really fortunate that we won,” Thompson said.

Georgetown now moves on to face North Carolina. The Hoyas and Tar Heels’ contest on Sunday will be a rematch of the 1982 NCAA title game, which UNC won behind a stellar performance from ichael Jordan.

With a trip to Atlanta up for grabs, Georgetown and North Carolina tip off in New Jersey at 5:05 p.m. on Sunday.