San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Bears can’t finish off hard-fought comeback
FORT WORTH — Baylor coach Scott Drew, already in a reflective mood Saturday following one of the wildest final 10 minutes of a game in the 82 editions of the NCAA Tournament, referenced former Houston Rockets coach Rudy Tomjanovich’s “never underestimate the heart of a champion.”
“I thought our guys really displayed that, having a chance to have the largest comeback in NCAA history in the last 10 minutes,” Drew said.
Top-seeded Baylor certainly did not underestimate eighth-seeded North Carolina in the Tar Heels’ 93-86 overtime victory in Dickies Arena — the defending national champion Bears just ran into a perennial blueblood program that has heated up at the right time.
“Being in March Madness, everyone is going to bring their best punch,” said guard Adam Flagler, who led the Bears with 27 points. “And (North Carolina) has great size. The Big 12 Conference prepared us for these moments, we just came up short.”
For more than 30 game minutes, the blowouts in the Fort Worth Regional looked like they would continue Saturday — with this one much less expected. Baylor trailed North Carolina by 25 points in the second half before storming back to tie the once-lopsided contest at 80 with 15 seconds remaining.
Incredibly, considering the massive deficit just minutes earlier, Baylor and its hyperactive fullcourt press forced overtime, where the Tar Heels more than doubled up the Bears in scoring in the extra five minutes for the seven-point victory.
Baylor in OT didn’t quite have the same defensive urgency as it did in climbing out of the 25-point hole — and the relieved Tar Heels took advantage.
“We were pressing in overtime whenever we got a score — a dead ball,” Drew said. “If they got a rebound, we weren’t pressing. When you spend all that energy, sometimes you run out of gas.”
Baylor would have completed the largest comeback in NCAA Tournament history had the Bears prevailed in regulation or OT. Duke overcame a 22-point deficit to Maryland in the Final Four before winning a national title over Arizona.
Instead, Baylor bows out of the tournament in the second round after defeating Gonzaga in the national title game last year in Indianapolis for the program’s first championship in men’s basketball.
North Carolina under first-year coach Hubert Davis advances to the Sweet 16 for the first time in three years.
“Baylor is a great team and the defending national champions, and they did not want to go home,” Davis said. “So they stepped up their effort. But we stepped up our effort as well.”
Fans from both sides exited the arena Saturday asking the same question: How was North Carolina a No. 8 seed again?
The Tar Heels (26-9) whipped ninth-seeded Marquette 95-63 on Thursday while the Bears (27-7) cruised past Norfolk State 85-49 the same day to set up the first meeting between Baylor and
North Carolina in basketball.
The Tar Heels jumped on the Bears from the opening tip and led 42-29 at halftime. North Carolina led 67-42 nearly midway through the second half before the crazy comeback was on — one in which the Bears finally ran out of steam in overtime.
North Carolina guard RJ Davis scored a game-high 30 points and the Tar Heels spread the scoring around in overtime with three players posting three points each and two more adding two each in finally tipping over the threadbare Bears.
“Pretty much when overtime started, we were just trying to get our guys to realize that it was zerozero — that it was a new game — and we’ve just got to relax and step up,” Tar Heels forward Leaky Black said.
The Bears actually shot the ball better in the first half (40 percent on 12-of-30) than in the second half (37.5 percent on 15-of-40) but got back in the game by creating 13 turnovers over the final 20 minutes and making all but three of their 17 free throw attempts.
Baylor unraveled in overtime, however, missing 10 of their 11 attempts from the field, including a combined 1-for-8 by Flagler and Jeremy Sochan. The Bears lose seniors Matthew Mayer, James Akinjo and Flo Thamba out of their eight-man rotation.
“You get down 25 and it’s easy to fold,” Drew said. “These guys don’t. It was a joy to coach them every single day. We might be losers on the scoreboard today, and give North Carolina a lot of credit, but I’m proud of these guys and how they represent Baylor University.”