Four play!
S. Carolina vs. Gonzaga N. Carolina vs. Oregon
MEMPHIS, Tenn. — It was déjà vu with a twist. An eerily similar ending, except the tears belonged to the opponent. The hero, unlikely sophomore reserve Luke Maye, was a Tar Heel.
Nearly a year after North Carolina had its collective heart broken in the NCAA championship game at the buzzer, Maye pulled a Kris Jenkins, the Villanova star who was seated Sunday behind the Tar Heels bench, supporting adopted brother Nate Britt.
Maye hit one of the biggest shots in North Carolina history, a deep jumper from the left wing with 0.3 seconds left to send the top-seeded Tar Heels back to the Final Four with a classic, 75-73 South Region final victory over second-seeded Kentucky in front of stunned crowd of 16,412 at FedExForum.
“It’s like the same thing [as last year],” said junior forward Theo Pinson, who set up Maye on the play. “I pitched it back to Luke and he hit a shot.”
Malik Monk, one of the likely oneand-done Kentucky freshmen, had pulled the Wildcats even just seconds before, hitting a 3-pointer with 7.2 seconds left. North Carolina, opting against a timeout, went the other way. Pinson played the role of Ryan Arcidiacono, driving into the lane and finding an open Maye a step in front of the 3-point line. Kentucky’s Derek Willis came over to defend, and Maye drained the step-back jumper, making Monk’s shot irrelevant.
It capped an unfathomable weekend for Maye, a Huntersville, N.C., native, one-time walk-on and son of former North Carolina quarterback Mark Maye. The 6-foot-7 Maye, named the region’s Most Outstanding Player, buried Butler on Friday with his first career double-double and scored a career-high 17 points off the bench Sunday, 12 over his regular- season average.
“That’s why they call it March Madness,” said North Carolina point guard Joel Berry II, who re-injured his right ankle in the first half but still scored 11 points in 33 minutes. “Stuff happens that you don’t expect.”
North Carolina (31-7) will meet Oregon, the third seed out of the Midwest Region, in the Final Four on Saturday night in Glendale, Ariz., one win away from the championship game it has obsessed over for a full calendar year.
The shot capped a wild ending sequence, featuring major momentum swings between arguably the two best teams left in the tournament. Led by its own unlikely star, Australian sophomore Isaac Humphries (career-high 12 points), Kentucky (32-6) took a 64-59 lead with 5:03 remaining. North Carolina, experienced in heartbreak and desperate to return to the Final Four, responded, reeling off 12 straight points. During a timeout, Williams switched to a zone defense and reminded his team of the second-round win over Arkansas, when it faced a similar deficit.
“We’re tough enough to do it,” Williams told his players, “so let’s do it.”
Pinson scored on a difficult baseline drive, Justin Jackson (game-high 19 points) forced up a runner through the lane that touched every part of the rim before falling, and Pinson hit two free throws as North Carolina regained the lead. The lead ballooned to seven with 53.5 seconds to go.
Kentucky nearly pulled off a miracle, with Monk and fellow freshman De’Aaron Fox hitting back-to-back 3pointers to slice a seven-point deficit to one. After Jackson pushed the lead back to three by beating the Wildcats press over the top, he missed the front end of a 1-and-1, and Monk sent the FedExForum into a catatonic state with another 3pointer.
“These were two teams just slugging at each other,” Kentucky coach John Calipari said.
Just as UNC and Villanova did a year ago, but this time, North Carolina landed the final blow. Confetti didn’t fall from the ceiling, the Tar Heels didn’t get the title, but they still have the opportunity to win it and the belief it is theirs to lose.
“I still feel like [this isn’t] redemption, just because we want to win the national championship,” Berry said. “We want to just make it to the Final Four. We put it all out on the line tonight, and if we do that the next two games, that trophy will be ours.”