Big Heels hero? It’s unsung Maye
MEMPHIS, Tenn. — North Carolina is one win away from getting back to a national championship game it narrowly lost a year ago.
And this time, the Tar Heels made the last shot.
Luke Maye hit a jumper with 0.3 seconds left and top-seeded North Carolina held off Kentucky 75-73 on Sunday in the South Region final to earn its second straight trip to the Final Four and 20th all time.
The Tar Heels (31-7) will play Midwest Region champ Oregon on Saturday in Glendale, Ariz., in a national semifinal.
“We get to keep playing,” said North Carolina coach Roy Williams, whose team lost to Villanova in last year’s national championship game on a buzzer-beating 3-pointer by Kris Jenkins.
After Kentucky freshman Malik Monk hit a 3-pointer with 10 seconds left to pull the Wildcats into a 73-73 tie, North Carolina’s Theo Pinson brought the ball downand passed back to Maye. The sophomore knocked down a shot with his feet on the 3-point arc.
“I just kind of stepped back, (Pinson) gave me the ball, I just shot it and luckily it went in,” Maye said. “It was a great feeling.”
Said Williams of Maye: “I’m the guy that wanted him to come as a walk-on, so how dumb am I? He (made) some big-time plays today, big-time plays two days ago.”
Kentucky coach John Calipari admitted he should have called a timeout after Monk’s basket but didn’t get a chance.
“It entered my mind, but they got that (ball) in so quick I couldn’t get to anybody to do it,” Calipari said. “I needed to stop that right there.”
Maye finished with 17 points off the bench for the Tar Heels. Justin Jackson scored a team-high 19 and Joel Berry II added 11.
The Wildcats (32-6) had one last chance, but Derek Willis’ inbounds pass went out of bounds on the far end.
“That shot (by Maye) is just playing back and forth in my head,” Kentucky freshman De’Aaron Fox said. “It’s going to be difficult to get over.”
Kentucky, which will miss out on the Final Four for the second straight year, got 13 points apiece from Fox and Bam Adebayo and 12 from Monk. All three picked up two fouls in the first half and Fox was limited to eight minutes before halftime.
Monk scored 47 points in a win over North Carolina in December.