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Three Key Takeaways.

North Carolina Moves into the Sweet Sixteen For First Time Since 2012 (USA Today Images)

1. Michael Qualls had himself a weekend. The only reason Arkansas had any shot down the stretch was because Michael Qualls was willing the team closer. Qualls finished with 27 points and 10 boards on the evening. His three-point shot wasn’t falling tonight, but that didn’t stop him from lining up jumpers. North Carolina kept him from any rim-rocking dunks, but they couldn’t keep him off the foul line. Bobby Portis also played through a rough first half to finish with 18 points and 14 boards.
2. Arkansas played too sloppy to win. The Razorbacks finished with 21 turnovers and they shot a lousy 37 percent from the floor. One or the other would have hurt them, but the combination of both was deadly. The craziest stat was in the offensive rebounding department. Arkansas grabbed 20 and North Carolina grabbed 17 on the night, but the Tar Heels turned their rebounds into points.
3. 48 fouls in the game; 31 fouls in the second half. Just awful for the flow of the game. Some were legitimate. Some were the two teams not adapting to the way the game was called. Some came because the game was at such a breakneck pace that the referees struggled to get in good position. North Carolina made 29 free throws and Arkansas made 22, as both teams shot around 80 percent from the line. The point is that what could have been one of the most entertaining games of the Tournament was marred somewhat by all the whistles.

Star of the Game: Marcus Paige took over the second half. He finished with 22 points, six rebounds and five steals. At the half he was only 1-of-8 from the field with two points. In the second half he started 4-of-4 from the field and 5-of-5 from the line. Whenever it looked like Arkansas might make a run, Paige would hit a big shot. He went on a personal 5-0 run midway through the second half right after Arkansas took the lead, and after that, the Tar Heels never looked back.

Quotable.

• “The second half [the refs] said, ‘We can’t keep up with them; let’s slow this down.'” — Mike Anderson, on the plentiful whistles in the second half.
• “If it was up to me, we’d have a 15-second clock.” — Roy Williams, on speeding up the game.

Sights and Sounds: Arkansas has a cheerleader with a prosthetic leg, and it was very cool to see her lifted and going through the whole routine.

This Arkansas Cheerleader Inspired Everyone in the Crowd

Wildcard: JP Tokoto had a really good game offensively. He finished with 13 points, eight assists, five rebounds and no turnovers. He struggled to stop Michael Qualls, but Roy Williams chose to let Tokoto guard Qualls one-on-one instead of helping a lot.

What’s Next: North Carolina heads to Los Angeles where it will get the winner of Wisconsin and Oregon on Thursday night.

mpatton (576 Posts)

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 21st, 2015 at 10:44 pm by Matt Patton and is filed under 2015 ncaa tournament, rushed reactions. Tagged: arkansas, bobby portis, jp tokoto, marcus paige, michael qualls, north carolina, roy williams. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.