Tar Heels crush Orange’s run
No. 1-seeded North Carolina overpowers Syracuse to reach NCAA title game
HOUSTON — There have been far more No. 1-ranked teams than usual this college basketball season — six in all — but the pre-season No. 1 will be playing for the national championship Monday night.
North Carolina made sure of that Saturday night, preventing No. 10 Syracuse from becoming the first double-digit seed to make the title game with a workmanlike 83-66 victory to improve to 33-6.
North Carolina already was the 29th pre-season No. 1 to make the Final Four. The 2009 Tar Heels were the last of the 14 that went on to win the championship.
This edition stuck to its usual playbook, mixing stout defence with a punishing inside game (a 50-32 advantage in the paint).
Syracuse tried its best to keep the bigger, longer Heels out of the paint and it worked for a time early, but eventually, Brice Johnson and Kennedy Meeks proved too much to handle as the lone remaining No. 1 seed at this tournament advanced to meet No. 2 Villanova in Monday’s title game.
Joel Berry II was excellent across the board, compiling an eightpoint, 10-assist, seven-rebound evening before a crowd of 75,505 at NRG Stadium, the second-highest total for an NCAA Final Four semifinal game.
Johnson and Justin Jackson added 16 each, Meeks 15 and Marcus Paige 13.
“We beat a Syracuse team that has been great down the stretch and is very difficult for us to play,” North Carolina head coach Roy Williams said. “These guys up here were sensational. I couldn’t be having a more fantastic ride than I’m having right now.”
There was little surprise that not a lot separated the two ACC rivals in the first half — a pair of regularseason contests had been tight (8473 and 75-70).
North Carolina led just 20-18 when a timeout was called. The Tar Heels heated up from there, going on a 13-6 run. Even though the Tar Heels didn’t hit a shot from beyond the three-point arc (0-for-10) in the first half, the team still led by 11 points, because Syracuse went 3-for-10 from both the free throw line and three-point range and 35.5 per cent overall from the field.
In the end, Trevor Cooney (22 points on 50-per-cent shooting) and Malachi Richardson (17, also on 50-per-cent shooting) were strong, but they didn’t have enough help. The rest of the team shot 11-for-34 (32 per cent).
This was no offensive masterpiece. The Orange forced North Carolina into a lot of bricks, thanks to its trusty 2-3 zone, making it hard to get entry passes into the low post, but when UNC did get inside, good things happened.
Out of desperation, Syracuse pressed, but head coach Jim Boeheim admitted it was a Hail Mary.
“Well, I don’t think we can press this team. We were going to, because that was the only way to get back in it,” Boeheim said.
“But it’s kind of like, you know, ‘If I’m on top of the Empire State Building, I don’t have to jump to know it’s going to hurt.’ I don’t need to press North Carolina to know it’s going to hurt. They’re veteran guys. They’re good against pressure. They like pressure. They score against pressure.”