Thursday night, it happened.

The team selected the 6-3, 215-pound West Virginia wide receiver at a raucous Auditorium Theatre, and will place him opposite Alshon Jeffery to help make up for the loss of the departed Brandon Marshall.

White is friends with both men; he shares an agent with Jeffery and befriended Marshall during his senior season at West Virginia, where he caught 109 passes for 1,447 yards.

At Halas Hall, general manager Ryan Pace said the draft unfolded the way they thought it would.

“We’re really jacked about this,” he said.

He said drafting White was a no-brainer, as he “checks all the boxes we’re looking for in a receiver.”

White can play outside, he said, but is versatile.

“He can catch a quick slant, break a tackle and go 99 yards,” Pace said.

Asked about rumors that the team tried to trade Jay Cutler and picks for the No. 2 selection and Marcus Mariota, Pace said that teams have been probing the Bears’ new staff, and vice versa.

He said the addition of White “only adds to Jay’s ability to distribute the ball.”

“The most exciting guy in the building is (offensive coordinator) Adam Gase upstairs,” he said.

White visited Halas Hall last week.

“It was great,” he said Wednesday. “The coaching staff was very high on me and everything was really relaxed, very natural. I feel like if I’m there at (No.) 7, I think they will pick me.”

The selection was the Bears’ highest since they picked Cedric Benson with the fourth overall selection in the 2004 draft. That was the last time the Bears picked in the top 10, too.

The team’s lost No. 7 overall pick was wide receiver Curtis Conway in 1993.

Pace stressed on Wednesday that the Bears had multiple holes to fill.

Coach John Fox said after Thursday’s practice that the draft was “never an easy day” for veteran players.

“I respect what they do tremendously, and it’s never an easy day,” he said. “But it’s part of the business and part of the process.”

David Terrell was the last receiver taken by the Bears, in 2001.

The Bears dealt Marshall and a seventh-round pick for the Jets’ fifth-rounder in March, and then signed slot receiver Eddie Royal to a three-year deal worth a guaranteed $10 million. Royal played with Cutler in Denver.