ATLANTA — Behind the Louisville bench, those in cardinal red remained on their feet in the final minutes, unable to sit down, or feel comfortable, or breathe. Peyton Siva drove and Gorgui Dieng swatted and Luke Hancock launched 3-pointers. Here was Louisville, the top seed in this N.C.A.A. tournament, playing like it until the end.
As the national championship unspooled Monday night, Louisville and Michigan put on a show, a production worthy of a stage, with acrobatics and dramatic flair, with stars in their usual roles and understudies in starring ones, with bodies that thudded when they hit the floor after so many collisions at the Georgia Dome.
It was Cirque du Soleil for the hoops set.
Louisville pulled from many elements, from its press and its pressure, from its outside marksmanship and its balanced scoring. The Cardinals (35-5) came from behind and seized control as the second half wore on. They ultimately triumphed, 82-76, as those fans danced and waved red towels and finally exhaled.
With that, a college basketball season as chaotic as any in recent memory ended, at once oddly and predictably, in favor of the favorite.
"These are the 13 toughest guys I've ever coached," said Rick Pitino, officially a Hall of Famer now, before he revealed that he promised them he would get a tattoo if they triumphed on Monday night.
Bring on the ink — perhaps "Louisville 4-eva" across the chest.
The players left the bench in the final seconds and stood on the elevated court. At the end of the scrum stood guard Kevin Ware, who broke his leg earlier in this tournament, propped up on crutches, as confetti rained down on the court. Out came the championship hats and T-shirts, the black Louisville banner, the stage for "One Shining Moment." Siva grabbed the flag and carried it around the court.
"These are my brothers," Ware said on stage. "I'm so proud of them."
So many elements. Hancock scored 22 points and earned most outstanding player honors while his father, who Yahoo Sports reported had a serious illness, watched from the stands. Pitino, who became the first men's basketball coach to capture championships with two different Division I colleges, worked the sideline. Siva, who once talked his father out of a suicide attempt, swayed back and forth and sang along to every song, karaoke but on a national stage.
The chosen few soon clustered on the court, as officials lowered the basket and the Cardinals snipped at one net with scissors. Dieng took his turn. So did another teammate. The basket was then lowered even more, as the assembled whistled and clapped and shed more than a few tears. Ware took the scissors and cut himself some nylon and held the net high in his right hand.
There it was. Louisville's first men's basketball title since 1986.
Afterward, Siva wore a clip of the net attached to a hat he had turned backward. Hancock carried the championship hardware with him to the interview room. He talked about the path he took there — lightly recruited out of high school, from prep school to George Mason to Louisville, all the way to Monday night, when he became the first nonstarter to win most outstanding player honors, according to research the N.C.A.A. said went back to 1939.
"There's really no way to describe how I feel that my dad was here," Hancock said. "It's hard to put into words."
Michigan players climbed first atop the stage for interviews, their eyes red, their faces glum. Their coach, John Beilein, had reached the final after some 35 seasons, many of them spent at the lower college levels. He called Monday night's locker room "the most emotional I've ever seen."
Of Louisville, he added, "I have not seen that quickness anywhere, and we've played some pretty good teams."
The first half unfolded with a series of surprises, the pace frenetic, the play physical, each new twist as unlikely as the one that had proceeded it. Guard Trey Burke, the national player of the year in most quarters, scored Michigan's first 7 points.
Then the game got weird.
Then the freshman Michael Albrecht turned the first half — the way the freshman Gerry McNamara did for Syracuse against Kansas in 2003 — into his own personal 3-point contest.
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