SEATTLE — For as long as there is basketball at the University of Maryland, Derik Queen will be remembered.

He will be remembered in highlight reels every March, playing his game-winning bank against Colorado State over and over. He will be remembered in the Terps’ record book and archives, joining the likes of Drew Nicholas and Kristi Toliver for an all-time clutch shot. He will be remembered on the playgrounds of Baltimore, where kids — maybe even right at this moment — will be reconstructing his baseline leaner, counting down the seconds out loud as they let the ball fly.

But Queen wasn’t thinking about history. He wasn’t thinking about a legacy, or being a March Madness hero, when he took the ball for what would be a 72-71 program-defining, and career-defining, win.

Derik Queen just wanted the ball. All the greatest players do.

The fourth-seeded Terps were facing all the headwinds in the world with 3.7 seconds left, moments after Rams guard Jalen Lake nailed a 3-pointer for the go-ahead score. This is exactly how Maryland had suffered its previous four losses, including two buzzer-beaters, all in the final 8 seconds of the game.

As if the Basketball Gods themselves were laughing, Ali Farokhmanesh — who hit one of the most famous last-minute shots ever to help his team reach the Sweet 16 — was sitting on the Rams bench as the lead assistant coach.

It felt like history was bound to repeat itself. But everything changed when coach Kevin Willard asked who wanted the ball.

“His exact words: ‘I want the M-F ball,’” Willard said. “So once he said that, it was a pretty simple decision. And I could see everyone’s body language kind of perk up a little bit because he was so confident in the fact that he wanted the basketball.”

Anyone who has watched Queen’s light shooting touch and his decisive moves in the post knows he’s physically gifted with a higher basketball IQ than most freshmen. But his greatest gift — the one on display as he hit the shot that put Maryland in its first Sweet 16 since 2016 — is that he is unflappable, almost naively so. It’s a quality of youth that Queen never thinks about what might go wrong, only what will go right.

“I feel like God was on our side right there, because our last four losses were buzzer-beaters,” Queen said. “It couldn’t be a fifth.”

How else but blind self-confidence could a freshman make his first-ever game winner, at any level of basketball, on a shot that tough?

“I wouldn’t have given it to him if I had known that,” Willard quipped.

But teammates were glad that Queen asserted control. Even though he exchanged a look with Rodney Rice as they took the court for the game’s final play — “f---, this again?” he said — Selton Miguel said he knew Queen would be “cash” on the possession. Ja’Kobi Gillespie was glad it was in the hands of a “special talent.”

Julian Reese, Queen’s older brother figure on the team who also played with him at St. Frances Academy, figured Queen wouldn’t let a negative thought into his head.

“Freshmen don’t really have any worries in the world,” Reese said. “He just plays that carefree. I think that’s just what makes him a good player. I think if everybody played like that, they’d be good.”

But not everyone is this good. Not everyone can be. But now Queen is a Terps legend.

With one shot, Queen created a flashbulb moment for a program that has been hungry to be relevant again for two decades. Everyone is buzzing about him, the Terps and the city he’s from.

That last bit was what Queen tacked on thoughtfully when CBS’s Andy Katz asked him where his confidence comes from: “I’m from Baltimore, that’s why.”

The line was an instant bar. The Terps’ NIL collective was selling shirts with the quote printed on them an hour later. In a week when the president of the United States was using Baltimore as a punching bag, Queen’s hometown pride was a refreshing retort.

Even if he had stopped to think about everything hinging on his shot, Queen could probably have not imagined it. He singlehandedly altered legacies with a flick of his wrist. For one thing, it settled a program that has been dogged by off-court drama with an athletic director who left for SMU. The threat of Willard hightailing for greener pastures seems less ominous now, because how could Maryland let a coach go when his players rallied around him on camera after the program’s biggest win in a decade?

“First, he did pay us the money, and so we got to listen to him,” Queen said, testing his standup act to start his endorsement. “And we all trust him because he’s, like, a player coach. And then he wants nothing but the best for us and he just coaches hard.”

For Willard, this will be the first time he coaches a team to the second weekend of the NCAA tournament, a ceiling he hit five times at Seton Hall. While he tried to push his 2-6 record in the tournament out of mind, he admitted after the game that it is one of his career regrets that he never led the Pirates to the Sweet 16.

“It’s hard, to be honest with you,” Willard said. “I know it’s always been on my back and it’s always been a stigma, but I knew I had confidence in myself that eventually, if you keep getting to this tournament, which my teams keep getting to this tournament, that I was eventually going to knock the door down.”

Reese helped the Terps win by doing something he’s struggled with throughout his career — hitting free throws. After shooting under 60% in his previous two seasons, this year Reese has refined his approach and mechanics to hit 72.7%. When he grabbed an offensive board with 22 seconds left and was fouled, Reese walked to the line believing he would make both shots.

“It feels great, just going up to the line with so much confidence, knowing you gonna make the shot,” he said. “It’s just routine, that’s all.”

Maybe some of Queen’s mentality has rubbed off on Reese, too.

The Terps were in the odd spot of understanding how thin the line is between teams who win and lose on buzzer-beaters. Willard gave the Rams respect, calling the Mountain West champions the best offense the Terps have faced to date. Colorado State had won 11 straight games headed into Sunday night, and they were poised to win another — if not for the singular talents of Queen.

Whatever influence Queen had before this game on recruiting, on the energy in the fan base, on the bottom line, the ripple is about to spread exponentially wider. NBA evaluators will take notice of his composure in a game-defining moment. His name will be on the tongue of every college basketball fan for the rest of the Terps’ run, which incidentally rambles joyfully on to the regionals in San Francisco.

The Crab Five are more than a group with a cute nickname now. They’ve done something worth remembering, and they might go even deeper into the bracket — and the Maryland record book.

“It’s just special just to be a part of the Maryland history,” Gillespie said. “It’s just this group of guys. We don’t want this to end. We love being around each other.”

After stepping off the podium, Queen was back in the locker room, talking about how his Instagram account was glitching from all the notifications flooding his feed. He started listing his favorite buzzer-beaters: Kawhi Leonard with the bouncing fadeaway against the Philadelphia 76ers; LeBron James from the left wing against the Chicago Bulls; Kobe Bryant in traffic against the Phoenix Suns; Michael Jordan’s Bulls walk-off against the Utah Jazz.

Now he has one. Now he’s in history. Now he’ll be remembered.

“I got to do something for Maryland myself,” Queen said. “Have something good on my résumé.”

Queen probably won’t be able to fathom exactly what that means for a while. But that’s the reason he wanted the ball — and why his instantly iconic shot never weighed on him an ounce.