North Carolina, Syracuse, Oklahoma and Villanova
Sooners, Tar Heels’ prolific attacks look tough to slow down
resume their NCAA title chase tonight.
HOUSTON — The Big East is back in the Final Four, reinvented and re-establishing itself as one of the best basketball conferences. Coach Jay Wright’s Villanova plays Oklahoma in tonight’s first national semifinal, making the Wildcats the first Big East team to reach the Final Four since the conference essentially dropped major college football after the 2013 season. The big Big East breakup came during sweeping Division I conference realignment that started in 2010. With FBS schools such as Pittsburgh, Louisville and West Virginia jumping to other conferences, the Big East’s basketball-focused schools decided to return the league to its hoops roots.
The remaining FBS schools formed the American Athletic Conference. The basketball schools — with old-school powers such as Georgetown, St. John’s and Villanova, the darlings of the landmark 1985 Final Four — kept the Big East name. The so-called Catholic Seven added Xavier, Creighton and Butler and nabbed a 12-year, $500 million deal with Fox’s fledging sports network, FS1. But the Big East had no Sweet 16 teams in ’ 14 and just one in ’15.
“We have to prove ourselves, not because we’re not a good league, but just because we’re new,” Wright said.
HOUSTON — These Final Four teams aren’t entering foreign territory.
Often coaches at this grand stage of the NCAA tournament are working to figure out every intricacy of their unknown opponent. But Saturday, the teams playing at NRG Stadium aren’t starting from scratch.
Oklahoma decimated Villanova by 23 points Dec. 7 in Hawaii. But the Wildcats may use that to their motivational and strategic advantage by learning from their mistakes against the Sooners in a battle of No. 2 seeds.
“We used that game to keep trying to improve,” Villanova coach Jay Wright said.
Syracuse, a No. 10 seed, lost twice to ACC opponent North Carolina, the Final Four’s only No. 1 seed. The Tar Heels beat the Orange 84-73 in January and 75-70 in February. Can Syracuse stage another monumental upset?
Everything starts anew Saturday. Here are the key storylines to the Final Four matchups.
Oklahoma vs. Villanova
Limiting Oklahoma’s Buddy Hield: Wright recently likened Hield to Superman. The way he has been playing in the tournament, it’s not too much of a stretch.
Averaging 29.3 points per game and shooting 47.5 percent on 3-pointers in four tournament games, Hield presents a headache for op- posing coaches: Is it better to guard him straight up — top-seeded Oregon made that mistake in the Elite Eight — or throw everything you have at him? Hield has been nearly impossible to stop no matter how teams guard him.
“He’s taking the ball so deep, he’s making some of them,” Wright said. “If you get up on him, he can go by you and still pull up for a 3. I don’t know if that’s part of his plan, but it’s genius if it is.”
The Wildcats limited him to “only” 18 points in their December meeting. But they understand the core around Hield has improved too. Dealing with Villanova’s balance: If you round up guard Jalen Brunson’s 9.8 points per game, the Wildcats have five players averaging in double figures. And they’re all gunners.
In NCAA tournament games, the Wildcats are shooting 55.1 percent from the field and 46.3 percent on 3-pointers. Guard Ryan Arcidiacono is hitting 57.9 percent of his 3s.
“Our 3-point-shooting philosophy, it is shoot ’ em up, sleep in the streets,” Wright said. “We recruit guys who are good shooters. We want them to come in and shoot with confidence first.”
North Carolina vs. Syracuse
Rattling North Carolina’s dominant offense: The Tar Heels have scored 83, 85, 101 and 88 points in their tournament games, winning by an average of 16. They dominated Indiana and wore down Notre Dame.
Senior forward Brice Johnson averages 21 points and is shooting 63 percent in the four games. As a team, North Carolina is shooting 51.2 percent in the tournament.
But if anything can rattle an offense, it’s Syracuse’s defense. Zoning in: If the Orange can similarly deconstruct the Tar Heels like they did Virginia, they’ll be playing for the championship. They held their tournament opponents to 51, 50, 60 and 62 points.
Syracuse’s famed zone defense can make teams implode as was on full display when top-seeded Virginia melted down late in the Elite Eight matchup and blew a 15-point lead.
“We watch it on tape, show them plays when we have played them,” North Carolina coach Roy Williams said. “It is really hard to simulate that in practice. You got those guys in foot-
ball that try to simulate the triple option. If you don’t have one of those great quarterbacks, it doesn’t work. For us, you have to just keep trying and do everything you can.”