North Carolina wins to face Villanova in NCAA final
HOUSTON - With Villanova having knocked No. 1 overall seed Kansas out of the NCAA tournament last weekend, the thought was that North Carolina was the team to beat of the remaining teams in the Final Four.
HOUSTON - With Villanova having knocked No. 1 overall seed Kansas out of the NCAA tournament last weekend, the thought was that North Carolina was the team to beat of the remaining teams in the Final Four.
The top-seeded Tar Heels certainly looked the part Saturday night in the nightcap of the national semifinal doubleheader, using their dominant inside game to wear down Syracuse and take an 83-66 victory over the Orange before a crowd of 75,505 at NRG Stadium.
North Carolina (33-6) advanced to Monday night's national championship game against Villanova, which crushed Oklahoma, 95-51, in the earlier semifinal. The Tar Heels defeated the Wildcats, 83-69, in the national semifinals of the 2009 tournament at Ford Field in Detroit and knocked off Connecticut two nights later to win it all.
The Tar Heels, winner of the East Region last Sunday night at the Wells Fargo Center, saw their twin towers of 6-foot-10 senior Brice Johnson and 6-10 junior Kennedy Meeks take control of the inside and prove to be too much for the Orange (23-14), the first No. 10 seed to make a Final Four.
The pair combined to shoot 13 of 20 from the field and helped Carolina score 50 points in the paint. Johnson scored 16 points and pulled down nine rebounds, and Meeks contributed 15 points and eight boards. Justin Jackson also had 16 points for the Tar Heels and Marcus Paige 13.
With Johnson and Meeks scoring at will, it was easy to overlook the fact that the Tar Heels went the first 30-plus minutes without a three-point basket and finished 4 of 17 from beyond the arc, 0 for 12 in the first half.
But coach Roy Williams said two significant shots were the first two threes his team made - by Paige and Theo Pinson - after Syracuse trimmed what had been a 17-point deficit to seven, 57-50, on a three-pointer by Malachi Richardson with 9 minutes, 48 seconds left.
"We didn't shoot the ball well from the three-point line in the first half," Williams said. "But we try to play with good balance inside and outside. I felt the two biggest baskets came on the three by Marcus and the three by Theo."
Syracuse hung tough, and a three-pointer by Trevor Cooney, who led all scorers with 22 points, kept the margin at 10, 72-62, with 3:47 to play. But Paige's three-ball touched off a closing 11-4 run that enabled the Tar Heels to start thinking of Villanova in the final.
Michael Gbinije, the Orange's leading scorer, managed just 12 points on 5-of-18 shooting before fouling out with 1:25 left.
Williams said he didn't watch one second of Villanova's win over Oklahoma, letting his assistants scout the Wildcats.
"I know Jay Wright, and I love the way Ryan [Arcidiacono] plays," he said.
"They take a lot of pride playing on the defensive end," said point guard Joel Berry II, who had 10 assists against just one turnover. "They do a great job of taking teams out of doing what they want to do. We have to go out and play our game."
The last meeting of Carolina and 'Nova came in the first round of the 2013 NCAAs in Kansas City, Mo., where the Cats fell short, 78-71.
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