The agony and misery of March college basketball is often summed up in a single shot. Wild heaves somehow go in, setting off celebrations to be replayed for decades to come.

And then there’s moments such as the final seconds of Sunday’s Atlantic 10 final, when George Mason’s Jalen Haynes drove into the lane in transition and kicked a pass out to the perimeter, finding sharpshooter Zach Anderson for an ideal look at a game-tying three-pointer.

“I thought it was good, just like the rest of us,” senior guard Darius Maddox lamented. “But it didn’t go in.”

Anderson’s shot rimmed out in the closing seconds as top-seeded VCU survived the Patriots, 68-63, at Capital One Arena.

Jalen Haynes scored 17 points for second-seeded Mason (26-8), which went a ghastly 6 for 26 on layups and had a season-high nine shots blocked.

“I thought it was a physical game,” Mason Coach Tony Skinn said. “It’s on paper that Jalen Haynes is the best big in our league, and I don’t care how big and physical he looks. When he gets hit, it’s a foul. A guy that’s shooting 65, 70 percent from the field was 5 of 14 tonight.”

Max Shulga scored 18 points and Joe Bamisile and Jack Clark had 17 points apiece for VCU (28-6), which never trailed and won the A-10 tournament for the second time in three years. Clark earned the tournament’s most outstanding player honor.

The Rams will take their accustomed place in the NCAA tournament, securing a berth for the 13th time since 2007, and did so while improving to 8-0 all-time against Mason in the conference tournament. VCU is seeded 11th in the East Region of the NCAA tournament and will play sixth-seeded BYU in the first round.

The Patriots appear headed to the NIT for the first time since 2009 — not the decade-plus drought they hoped to end. The last of Mason’s six NCAA tournament trips was in 2011.

“You almost have to be flawless in this league to make it to the NCAA tournament,” Skinn said. “I remember the A-10 when they were getting two, three, four teams in there and I can’t remember the last time a team won 26 games, essentially won 17 conference games and is not in the conversation.”

The reason he can’t recall that: Mason became the first A-10 team with 26 wins on Selection Sunday to be excluded in the conference’s 49-year history.

The matchup was a throwback to the teams’ days in what used to be called the Colonial Athletic Association, when they often engaged in slugfests and usually seemed like they were on a collision course in March. But they hadn’t played with these stakes since the 2009 CAA title game.

It was Mason’s first March Sunday in this building 20 miles from its campus since its 2006 East Region final win over Connecticut clinched the only Final Four berth in program history. That day, most of the arena was behind the Patriots. This time around, VCU fans were well-accounted for in the crowd of 12,516.

The defining element of the first half was its chippiness, hardly an unexpected twist for two teams defined by their defense. VCU’s Phillip Russell had a flagrant foul that allowed Mason to make four free throws on a possession to tie it at 24, and there were later technicals assessed to Haynes and the Rams’ Christian Fermin after a late-half fracas.

There were 21 fouls in the difficult-to-officiate half, which led to its other notable trait: its length. It took about an hour to complete, felt even longer and finally concluded on Shulga’s tip-in to make it 36-28.

“All those things come back to bite you in this game,” Skinn said.

VCU eventually kicked its lead out to 10 before Mason worked its way back. Maddox’s three-pointer with 2:28 left pulled the Patriots within 59-58, and it was a three-point game when Haynes made his last basket with 39.2 seconds to go.

Haynes corralled the rebound of Zeb Jackson’s missed three-pointer with about 10 seconds left, then moved it up the floor as the VCU defense gave chase. The kick-out to Anderson, a 38.8 percent shooter from the outside, was delivered crisply. Anderson was set and had good form. And as it reached the basket, it seemed overtime was in the offing.

Then it spun out, setting off a Rams celebration halted only when officials put a half-second back on the clock. Two Bamisile free throws later, VCU rushed onto the floor again.

“You couldn’t have asked for a better finish,” Skinn said. “We had a chance.”

Indeed, the Patriots had a shot — one that won’t be a staple of highlight videos, but one that will be long remembered in Fairfax County as part of the emotions of March.