Zags, Heels go for glory
Goliath comes up huge on big stage in desert
There are no tall tales left to tell about Gonzaga. The latest chapter in what once was a Cinderella story starts with a seven-footer from Torun, Poland. He throws his weight around, gets poked in the eye and rebounds to finish strong. He passes a torch to a seven-footer from Las Vegas. The freshman blocks six shots and stonewalls all South Carolina comers at the rim. It concludes with a 6-foot-10 forward from Cagnes-sur-Mer, France sealing a Final Four game with free throws.
Turn the page. The NCAA title game and a fellow top seed in North Carolina await the Bulldogs now. Gonzaga coach Mark Few revels in the new narrative.
“I’ve had some really, really tough teams,” Few says. “I’ve had some really close teams. I’ve had some teams that have been crazy efficient on the offensive end and ones that have been pretty darned good on the defensive end that probably didn’t get credit for it. These guys are all of that. All of it.”
Gonzaga is Goliath on the raised court in Glendale, Ariz. This one goes down in the books simply as this: No. 1 Gonzaga 77, No. 7 South Carolina 73.
The Tar Heels better be ready for all of it. They survived Oregon, seized opportunities when the Ducks decided not to box out on final free throw misses. UNC needs no reminder of what the dark side of Monday night feels like. Revenge has been on the mind of every Tar Heel since last season’s loss to Villanova.
Gone are the Gamecocks, an upstart from the Southeastern Conference, a team capable of going on a 16-0 run in a national semifinal but incapable of closing out the Bulldogs. The Bulldogs are on their own time now. Midnight is no longer a curfew on campus in Spokane. The final score in the Final Four opener is what will glow from the desert to the Washington mountaintops over the next 48 hours as Gonzaga prepares to box out a North Carolina team that survived four missed free throws in the final of its semifinal win over Oregon. Gonzaga will be ready to bang.
Gone are 66 teams from the NCAA tournament field that was picked by the selection committee 43 floors above Times Square three weeks ago. The Bulldogs are the bullies on the brink, a team with a 37-1 record and a date on a football stadium court in the desert Monday night. This is what happens when a Jesuit school grows a contender organically into a juggernaut in the Great Northwest, breaking recruiting molds and melding together a unit under Few’s stewardship.
Gonzaga has been on the go awhile now. They have been relentless through Lent, marching from Salt Lake City to San Jose to Arizona with net cords gained and respect well earned. They left the door open for South Carolina, but slammed it shut in the end. Few was the one celebrating by handstand in the post-game locker room.
Gone was any worry of making it to Monday night. One year after Villanova clipped down the nets in Houston, another non-football program is coming for its chance at the ladder, looking to match Villanova and advance farther than Butler did when it reached back-to-back national championship games under Brad Stevens.
There will be no forgetting how Gonzaga got to this point. The big men buoyed Few’s teams in beating back the Gamecocks for the national semifinal victory. If it wasn’t Przemek Karnowski identifying a passing lane, it was Zach Collins rising up to swat a water bug guard attempting to rise up over him. It was one of his six rejections, but the tandem proved up to the task of staring down South Carolina’s Chris Silva (13 points; 3 blocks). Silva stood his ground, rejected Karnowski and sent him from the game with a poke of the eye.
“I had blurry vision, a little bit shadow,” Karnowski says. “I couldn’t really open it.”
It was South Carolina seeing double when they looked in the post, though.
Collins delivered immediately. There he was, blocking a shot on one end and scoring a layup n the other. South Carolina ranked No. 2 in the nation in defense and rankled Gonzaga for a scoreless stretch that lasted more than four minutes. The end of that drought commenced when the big men regained strength to reign once more. First Collins hit a jumper. Karnowski followed with a powerful dunk off the baseline between two Gamecocks. The two baskets put Gonzaga up 70-67.
“He’s been huge for us, and not only this game but the entire season,” Karnowski says. “And with six blocks, you know, my career high is seven, but six is still good.” Gonzaga established its presence in the title game by gaining a foothold in the post. It backed South Carolina down, whipped passes from the high post to the low post and proved to be crafty in a crevice, creating opportunities for both big men in order to stare down the nation’s second best defense. Gonzaga is going to the national title game. North Carolina is next. Few knows how physical his crew will have to be against the likes of Kennedy Meeks, a man in baby blue, Monday night. Once dubbed David, Gonzaga is Goliath now. These aren’t puppies nipping at the Heels. Beware the Bulldogs.