Maye an X-factor for Tar Heels

Luke Maye is a rotation reserve for North Carolina. He is not the only hidden gem among Final Four men’s teams.

Geno Auriemma, Tara VanDerveer and Dawn Staley have decades-long connections through women’s NCAA Final Fours and Olympic gold medals.

The coaches in Dallas this week for the Final Four are hardly strangers.

“It really is an interesting dynamic,” Connecticut’s Auriemma said Tuesday during a national conference call. “You really couldn’t orchestrate something like that. It kind of just has to happen. It’s unique. You don’t see that generally anywhere, much less in a Final Four.”

Even Vic Schaefer is in the same conference with Staley, who was part of a championship-winning staff that beat Stanford in the 2011 Final Four, and met with Auriemma last summer after UConn delivered an embarrassing end to Mississippi State’s first NCAA Sweet 16.

UConn takes a 111game winning streak into its record 10th consecutive Final Four, and 18th overall, under Auriemma.

The Huskies play Final Four first-timer Mississippi State in the second game Friday night, a rematch of that NCAA Tournament game UConn won by 60 points last March.

VanDerveer is in her 12th Final Four with Stanford, nine coming at the same time with UConn. The Cardinal play South Carolina, and Staley in the first game at the home of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks.

“Dawn is extremely competitive. She’s a competitive person, coach, player. She’s very intelligent. She’s very passionate about basketball,” VanDerveer said. “I see all of these things, having coached her and known her for, I guess, about 30 years.”

The first of Staley’s three Olympic gold medals as a player came in 1996, when VanDerveer coached the U.S. women’s national team.

Staley has two more golds as an assistant coach, including last summer with Auriemma, whom earlier this month she succeeded as head coach of the national team.

“Tara has taught me so much about the game as a player,” Staley said. “I still use the foundation of how I approach games from the days in which she taught me as an Olympian, the times we spent together.”

Staley played in three straight Final Fours as a player at Virginia from 1990-92, the same span when VanDerveer made her first three appearances as the Cardinal coach.

Virginia lost to eventual national champion Stanford in the 1990 and 1992 semifinal games.

In 1991, the Cavaliers won their semifinal game against UConn — Auriemma’s first Final Four game as a head coach — before losing to Tennessee in the title game.

Schaefer went to Final Fours as an assistant for Gary Blair at Arkansas and Texas A&M, including the Aggies’ national championship in 2011.

This is the 56-year-old Schaefer’s fifth season at Mississippi State, and their third consecutive NCAA Tournament. The Bulldogs beat top-seeded Baylor in the Oklahoma City Regional final, a year after that 60-point season-ending debacle against UConn.

After Schaefer had a chance meeting with Auriemma while recruiting in Colorado Springs last summer, the two were in Houston at the same time in September when they got together for dinner. The timing never worked out for Schaefer to make a trip to Connecticut.

“It was really great for me to just talk to him about, you know, the game and, in particular, offense. Again, for some reason, I’ve kind of been known throughout my career as the defensive guy,” Schaefer said. “Our conversation, more me picking his brain . ... I was pretty specific in trying to get some information out of him. He was super.”

Auriemma said the conversation was like many he has with other coaches during the offseason. He said it was enjoyable, and a learning time for him as well in sharing ideas about the different things they do.

“Believe me, I didn’t give Vic anything he didn’t already know,” Auriemma said. “It wasn’t me, believe me, saying, ‘Hey, Vic, if you do this, this and this, next year you guys are going to be in the Final Four.’ There wasn’t anything like that at all . ... They’re an unbelievably good team. He’s done an amazing job. Believe me, I take none of the credit for that.”

North Carolina’s Luke Maye can’t go to class without getting a standing ovation nor walk across campus without getting stopped by people requesting to take a photo with him.

All because of one shot — one that lifted the Tar Heels past Kentucky to reach the Final Four while turning the sophomore from rotation reserve to sudden star.

“He’s big-time now,” junior Justin Jackson said. “I feel like we need some security around campus.”

Maye headlines a group of players that could emerge as X-factors in determining whether UNC, Gonzaga, Oregon or South Carolina wins the national championship. Don’t sleep on Gonzaga’s Zach Collins, Oregon’s Jordan Bell or South Carolina’s Rakym Felder.

“The entire year, (coach Roy Williams) has been putting me in the games, wanting me to make good plays,” Maye said Tuesday. “Some games I hit a shot early, in other games I’d just get a rebound or make a good pass. I’m just trying to go out there and help my team win as best I can.”

The 6-foot-9 Maye entered last weekend as a player who has had some good moments — including 15 rebounds against Florida State, 13 points at rival North Carolina State — but generally played to spell starters Kennedy Meeks or Isaiah Hicks up front.

Yet he had shown a soft shooting touch and the ability to pull defending big men out to the perimeter. And when Hicks got in early foul trouble against Butler in the Sweet 16, Maye became much more than a sub for the Tar Heels (31-7).

The guy who came in averaging 5.1 points in 13.8 minutes per game went for 16 points and 12 rebounds in the win against the Bulldogs. Then, with Hicks struggling against the Wildcats in the Elite Eight, Maye scored 17 points — the last two coming on that jumper with 0.3 seconds left for the 75-73 win.

Here’s a look at players who could emerge from the shadows this weekend in Glendale, Ariz.:

The West Region’s top seed has freshman Zach Collins, a 7-foot McDonald’s All-American, coming off the bench behind center Przemek Karnowski. Collins is averaging 9.9 points and 5.7 rebounds while shooting 65.4 percent off the bench, and he’s doing it in just 17.2 minutes per game entering the semifinals against South Carolina in a matchup of two first-time Final Four programs.

On a team led by Dillon Brooks and Tyler Dorsey, 6-9 junior Jordan Bell is averaging 10.9 points and 8.6 rebounds. But after the Ducks lost shot-blocker Chris Boucher to a knee injury during the Pac-12 Tournament, Bell proved his ability to dominate inside by finishing with 11 points, 13 rebounds and eight blocks in the Midwest Region final to help the Ducks beat No. 1 seed Kansas for their first Final Four since winning the 1939 NCAA title.

Rakym Felder is the “New York City point guard” coach Frank Martin says he wanted. The 5-foot-10 freshman has started just once all year and plays 14.5 minutes per game, but he has had some key production in the NCAA Tournament — most notably by tallying 15 points, four rebounds and three assists in the upset of 2-seed Duke in the East Region’s second round. Felder is shooting a team-best 43 percent from 3-point range while averaging 5.7 points entering the Gonzaga game.