North Carolina, Syracuse round out semis
The NCAA Tournament East Regional final wasn’t the blowout some anticipated, but North Carolina is headed to Houston for the Final Four all the same.
The top-seeded Tar Heels became the only No. 1 seed to advance to the Final Four via a 88-74 win against sixth-seeded Notre Dame on Sunday night at the Wells Fargo Center.
North Carolina will play 10th-seeded Syracuse, yet another ACC foe, on Saturday at NRG Stadium in the storied program’s NCAA-record 19th Final Four, but its first since 2009.
North Carolina (32-6) beat Syracuse (23-13) in both of the team’s regular-season meetings, by 11 at the Carrier Dome in January and by only five in Chapel Hill in February. The programs have not met in the NCAA Tournament since a 1987 regional final.
After a highly competitive first half on Sunday, the Tar Heels looked poised to run away with the game early in the second. Notre Dame erased an 11-point lead with a 12-0 run to take a brief onepoint lead but North Carolina stormed back with a 12-0 run of its own to negate that of the Fighting Irish.
The Tar Heels maintained and extended their double-digit cushion over the game’s final six minutes.
Brice Johnson, named Most Outstanding Player of the East Region following the game, led five North Carolina players in double-figures scoring with 25 points to go along with 12 rebounds.
The 6-foot-10 senior forward’s 23rd double-double of the season set a new school record, breaking Billy Cunningham’s mark of 22 set in 1963-64.
Marcus Paige scored 13 points and Justin Jackson, a Tomball native in for a homecoming this week, added 11 points and three offensive rebounds. Joel Berry II scored 11 points and dished out eight assists.
Demetrius Jackson led Notre Dame (24-12) with a game-high 26 points. V.J. Beachem added 18.
Both teams started off on fire offensively, making for a fast-paced and entertaining first half. North Carolina, which led by five at the break, shot a blistering 64 percent to Notre Dame’s whopping 58 percent and outrebounded its opposition, 13-7.
Johnson, North Carolina’s top scorer and rebounder, took advantage of early foul trouble by his big man counterpart, Zach Auguste, who was limited to five first-half minutes. Johnson entered the break with 15 points and eight rebounds, one more than the entire Notre Dame team. (Houston Chronicle/TNS)
Syracuse 68, Virginia 62
Syracuse’s vaunted zone defense, which sparked a 15-0 spurt as part of a breathtaking comeback. Freshman Malachi Richardson scored 10 of his gamehigh 23 points during the run, and Syracuse rallied from a 54-39 deficit with 10 minutes remaining to stun Virginia.
Cinderella usually doesn’t wear this shade of orange, but 10th-seeded Syracuse advanced to the sixth Final Four in program history and the fifth in Boeheim’s 40 seasons as coach.
The Orange (23-13), already part of college basketball royalty, became the fourth double-digit seed to make the Final Four.
“I thought we deserved to be in the tournament, but certainly... I wasn’t planning on getting to the Final Four,” Boeheim said. “We tell the players: It’s one game. You play one game, and if you can just win one game, you get another chance. They’ve done that.”
Sunday’s win stamped some legitimacy to a tournament run that was greased by a favorable bracket. After beating seventh-seeded Dayton in the first round, Syracuse benefited from other teams’ upsets and knocked off No. 15 Middle Tennessee and No. 11 Gonzaga.
The Orange were eight-point underdogs against Virginia, which beat them 73-65 on January 24. And that appeared to be kind after Virginia (28-9) surged to a 35-21 halftime lead.
Considering the Cavaliers were 68-0 when leading by at least 10 at halftime in coach Tony Bennett’s seven seasons, they seemed fast-tracked for the Final Four.
But Syracuse’s full-court pressure sparked the comeback by quickening Virginia’s pace. During the 15-0 run, which lasted 5:22, Virginia missed five shots, turned the ball over twice and missed the front end of a one-and-one.
On the other end of the emotional seesaw, Syracuse’s senior guard Trevor Cooney beamed in the controlled chaos of the postgame celebration.
“I’m at a loss for words right now,” he said. “They had us on the ropes,” Trevor Cooney said. “We were almost knocked out.”
But now, just like that, Syracuse is just two wins from a championship.