North Carolina head coach Roy Williams celebrates his team’s national championship Monday. But on the other side is Gonzaga, left to cope with the loss.
It was a ball screen to get Nigel Williams-Goss going downhill to the rim, the way he has hundreds of times this season. Gonzaga, down by three points in the closing seconds of the national championship game, was going to take the easy two and test North Carolina’s nerves at the foul line in the final 15 seconds.
But Williams-Goss, the Zags’ best player who appeared moments earlier like he might just carry them to a title, never got his shot to the rim.
In fact, it never got beyond the right palm of Kennedy Meeks, whose block led to a run-out dunk for Justin Jackson, clinching a 71-65 victory for North Carolina.
As Jackson celebrated, WilliamsGoss was 94 feet away, crouched on the baseline, tears beginning to fall. Gonzaga coach Mark Few paused for a moment, started clapping, even though the championship had already been decided. Then he bent down, put his arm around Williams-Goss and whispered in his ear to begin a process of grief that will probably take awhile to recover from.
That’s just how it is when teams lose a very winnable title game, which this was for Gonzaga. But even though WilliamsGoss missed the final two shots after turning his right ankle with 85 seconds left, the Zags will at least be able to live with this: Every possession down the stretch, for better or worse, the ball was in the hands of their best player.
“He’s our closer,” assistant coach Tommy Lloyd said. “I wouldn’t do it any different.”