There’s no arguing that North Carolina is among college basketball royalty. The Tar Heels are one of only three programs with a truly national fan base (the other two are Duke and Kentucky). They own five national championships and consistently recruit a level of talent that most programs can only dream of. But with the news of a multi-year academic scandal and corresponding NCAA investigation hanging overhead, the carefully-curated lustre of “the Carolina Way” had faded. The uncertainty of the drawn-out investigation resulted in a surplus of negative recruiting and several classes that lagged behind the other national powerhouses.

Brice Johnson and North Carolina met their match Monday. (Photo: Chuck Liddy / Raleigh News & Observer)

“When you’re a kid growing up, you don’t dream of missing the last second shot, or a team beating you at the buzzer,” he said. “You dream of having that moment. That confetti. Seeing your family over there crying tears of joy. Hugging guys you’ve had blood, sweat and tears with for four years. That’s what you dream of. We were close to that dream.” — Marcus Paige

All of this set the stage for Roy Williams to rebrand his team — one of college basketball’s elites — as a Cinderella despite starting the season as the top dog (preseason AP #1). Some experts quickly left the Tar Heels’ bandwagon after they blew a mid-November double-figure second half lead at Northern Iowa (a team that was ultimately one broken press away from the Sweet Sixteen, remember). A narrative has existed over the last few years — promoted incessantly by Dan Dakich’s egocentric view of history — that North Carolina lacked toughness. The early loss to the Panthers played into that narrative, but it more or less became gospel when the Tar Heels allowed a lesser Duke squad to steal a February victory in Chapel Hill even with Matt Jones injured for most of the game. Suddenly Doug Gottlieb was mentioning that Williams was considering retirement to allow Hubert Davis to assume the helm. Since that loss on February 17, the Tar Heels played with an “us against the world” mentality that we hadn’t seen from them. Read the rest of this entry »

RTC is providing wall-to-wall coverage of the NCAA Tournament again this season. Make sure to follow us @rushthecourt throughout Final Four weekend. 

Three Key Takeaways.

Kris Jenkins Made History With His Buzzer-Beating Championship Winner (USA Today Images)

1. A Shot For The Ages. After a lackluster Saturday night of national semifinals we were treated to an excellent game for the first 39 minutes of action, but it was the final 93 seconds during which the game went to another level. It started off with Marcus Paige hitting a deep corner three to cut Villanova’s lead to three, followed by Brice Johnson cutting it to one with a layup. Josh Hart then made four straight free throws sandwiched around a ridiculous Marcus Paige strip/reverse layup to again cut the lead to one point. Hart’s third and fourth free throws made it a three-point game again, leading to Paige hitting an off-balance, double-clutch three-pointer to tie it with 4.7 seconds left. That alone would have been an all-time shot if it hadn’t been followed up by Villanova’s Kris Jenkins hitting a buzzer-beating three to win the championship that we are still having trouble believing went down.
2. Arcidiacono and Booth steal the show. The pair combined to score 36  points (a career-high 20 for Booth and 16 for Arciadiacono) on 12-of-16 from the field including 4-of-5 from three-point range. More importantly, it was the timeliness of their surges that kept Villanova afloat both early (Arcidiacono) and late (Booth). Booth in particular picked a great time to have the best performance of his two-year career on the Main Line, as his career-high in points (20) was the recipe for a success for a team that didn’t get huge nights from its typical offensive stars.
3. North Carolina’s three-point barrage. Coming into the game it was supposed to be Villanova that would shoot the lights out from the outside. Instead a Tar Heels team that entered the contest shooting a putrid 31.9 percent from three-point range this season managed to go 7-of-9 from beyond the arc in the first half to stake a 39-34 lead (despite being outscored 18-12 inside the paint). They ended up shooting a scorching 11-for-17 on the evening, tying their season-high from three-point range (they went 11-for-20 against Indiana in the Sweet Sixteen), but it wasn’t enough to losing the battle of the paint (their supposed strength) and Jenkins’ dagger.

Star of the Game. Phil Booth, Villanova. We were ready to go with Joel Berry II here — a player who went off with 15 points on 6-of-7 shooting including 3-of-3 from three in the first half — but he followed that up with just five points in the second half. Instead we are going to go with Booth, who came into the game with a career high of 16 points in a game against East Tennessee State (a slightly smaller stage). He poured in 20 points going 6-of-7 from the field including 2-of-2 from three while making all six of his free throws. Unlike Grayson Allen last year, this performance was completely unexpected as he wasn’t a highly regarded recruit and we don’t expect him to turn into an All-American next season. Regardless, this night was his.

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RTC is providing wall-to-wall coverage of the NCAA Tournament again this season. Make sure to follow us @rushthecourt throughout Final Four weekend. 

Three Key Takeaways.

Brice Johnson and UNC are where we expected them to be

1. After having issues earlier this year North Carolina is where they were expected to be. This hasn’t been the smoothest ride for the Tar Heels, who started the year at #1 in the polls before dropping out of the Top 10 following two early road losses. Despite that they have managed to put the pieces together to develop into the juggernaut we thought they could be. Since February 6, they have only lost two games (a ridiculous one-point home loss to Duke where they stopped going to a dominant Brice Johnson and a five-point road loss to a Virginia team that ended up earring a #1 seed itself). They still have their issues (like their inability to hit 3s reliably), but they find themselves exactly where we expected them to be when the season started: playing for the national title on the first Monday in April.
2. Syracuse couldn’t make its magic happen one more time. Lost in all of Boeheim’s vitriol has been what an improbable run this has been for the Orange. Sure, they got a huge boost when Middle Tennessee State beat Michigan State (ok, they got a huge hand even before that when they were allowed in the NCAA Tournament with a questionable resume), but they played out of their mind in the last two rounds coming up with huge rallies to stun both Gonzaga and Virginia to get to the Final Four. They weren’t one of the four best teams in the country this season, but that shouldn’t diminish the magical run they had getting to Houston.
3. Monday night will be a contrast in styles. By now it should be pretty obvious what UNC’s strength is (interior play) and what Villanova’s strength is (perimeter play). We will have more on this between now and Monday night, but it will be fascinating to see the contrast with Villanova essentially having nothing inside beyond Daniel Ochefu and North Carolina being inconsistent from the perimeter to put it mildly.

Star of the Game. Joel Berry II. He often goes overlooked with Brice Johnson’s spectacular interior play and Marcus Paige’s experience, but Berry was phenomenal tonight with 8 points, 7 rebounds, and 10 assists with only 1 turnover.  Read the rest of this entry »

Roy Williams and Jim Boeheim couldn’t seem more different on most days. Both reflect their environments: one is a cranky New Yorker; the other sounds every bit like he grew up in Swannanoa, North Carolina (a town of fewer than 5,000 people in the eastern North Carolina mountains). But the two have fascinating reputations to unpack.

Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim, left, and North Carolina head coach Roy Williams, right, greet each other before for the start of an NCAA college basketball game in Syracuse, N.Y., Saturday, Jan. 11, 2014. Syracuse won 57-45. (AP Photo/Nick Lisi)

Williams was a longtime assistant for Dean Smith, and he rarely lets an opportunity get by without letting you know about it. Everything from his disinterest in calling timeouts to stop opponent runs to his frequent first half subbing harken back to his assistant coaching tenure under Smith. After a decade on the Tar Heels’ bench, Williams left in 1988 to take over a Kansas program in disarray as a result of Larry Brown. Hardly a rebuilding job, though, Williams made the NCAA Tournament in every year he was in Lawrence except his first (the Jayhawks were still on probation). He wound up taking Kansas to the Final Four a total of four times, including the 2002-03 season, right before he left for Chapel Hill. At the time, Williams famously said, “I could give a sh– about North Carolina,” immediately following his championship game loss to (ironically) Jim Boeheim and Syracuse.

Back at his alma mater starting in 2003, Williams took over a floundering program that had lost 36 games in its previous two seasons (it would take Williams six years to log 36 losses). Matt Doherty bequeathed him a young team with many of the players Williams would ride to his first national championship — Raymond Felton, Jawad Williams, Sean May and Jackie Manuel. But Williams’ Tar Heels bore no resemblance to the ones coached by Doherty. They ran like the wind and turned the undersized May into an unstoppable juggernaut. It’s impossible to consider now, but North Carolina was arguably one more bad hire away from long-term irrelevance (with Coach K just down the road having just won his third championship in 2001).

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The Final Four tips off later today, so it’s time to break down the upcoming games by determining what it will take for each team to win. Yesterday we previewed the early battle between Oklahoma and Villanova, tipping off at 6:09 PM ET. Today we review the Syracuse-North Carolina nightcap, scheduled to tip at 8:49 PM ET. RTC’s Brian Otskey (North Carolina) and Bennet Hayes (Syracuse) with the honors.

Syracuse Will Win If…

Syracuse is One of the Most Unlikely Final Four Entrants Ever (Photo: Dennis Wierzbicki-USA TODAY Sports)

• North Carolina misses three-point shots…and Syracuse rebounds them. The Tar Heels killed Syracuse on the offensive glass in their last meeting (19 offensive rebounds to Syracuse’s 22 defensive rebounds), which severely mitigated the damage done by North Carolina’s anemic perimeter shooting (6-of-25 from three-point range). UNC is fully capable of struggling to make three-point shots again (it shoots just 32 percent on the season), but Syracuse must hold its own on the defensive glass this time around. There’s a reason the Orange rank 337th nationally in defensive rebounding percentage, but expect Jim Boeheim to emphasize constant awareness and early box-outs when the Tar Heels hoist a long-range attempt.
• They make three-point shots. There’s no avoiding the fact that Syracuse isn’t a good offensive team. Michael Gbinije has been the lone consistent source of offensive production this season, and even he has looked tired at times during this NCAA Tournament. However, there are a handful of players capable of getting hot from the perimeter. Senior Trevor Cooney is prime among them (35% 3FG), but Malachi Richardson, Tyler Lydon and Gbinije himself would all boost Syracuse’s chances if they are able to knock down shots tonight. No need to think too hard here – the three-point shot will always be an underdog’s greatest equalizer.
• An Orange freshman is the best player on the court. North Carolina is nearly a 10-point favorite in this game but it’s possible that Syracuse will have two players drafted before any Tar Heel this June. Lydon and Richardson are freshmen with rapidly rising draft stocks – particularly the former – and each is capable of having a huge impact on Saturday. Hoping they will be the best player on the floor against a team with talented veterans like Brice Johnson and Marcus Paige is asking a lot, but both freshmen have shown glimpses that suggest they are more than capable. Heck, Richardson has already dominated the ACC Player of the Year (Malcolm Brogdon) for a half in this Tournament; why can’t he or Lydon produce a similar feat against the Heels?

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When North Carolina squares off with Syracuse in Saturday’s late national semifinal, it will mark the sixth time in league history that the ACC has entered two schools into the season’s final weekend. It’s been a great March Madness showing for the conference, with a record six schools in the Sweet Sixteen, a record-tying four teams in the Elite Eight, and an overall 18-5 record. The last time the ACC sent two teams to the Final Four was in 2004, when the league still carried nine teams. Since then, the ACC has undergone two major expansions that resulted in an immediate and noticeable downturn in its long tradition of basketball excellence. But combined with last year’s fine NCAA Tourney showing, it appears that the ACC has regained its status as the best among the nation’s major hoops conferences.

Marcus Paige and North Carolina will face a familiar foe in Saturday’s National Semifinals. (Bill Streicher/USA TODAY Sports)

It’s a little surprising how often individual conferences send multiple teams to the same Final Four. Of course, only one school per conference could participate in the NCAA Tournament for the first 36 years of the event. That changed in 1975 — thanks in large part to Maryland’s exclusion in 1974 — and, from there, it only took one season for a league to place two teams in the season’s final weekend — Indiana defeated fellow Big Ten school Michigan in the 1976 title game. In 1980, the Big Dance became a fully open tournament, with no limit on the number of teams a conference could send. Since then, 65 percent (24 of 37) of the subsequent Final Fours have featured multiple teams from the same conference. Particular hats off to the 1985 Big East, a league that sent three of its members to the Final Four. As you can see below, the Big Ten leads the way with multiple appearances over that span.

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Now that the Final Four is set, our writers have put together a fact sheet on each of the four teams still remaining. Next, North Carolina.

How The Tar Heels Got Here

Roy Williams Leads North Carolina to the Final Four for the 19th Time in School History (USA Today Images)

East Region Champions. North Carolina faced little resistance from Florida Gulf Coast in the first round and then used a strong second half against Providence to advance to the Sweet Sixteen in Philadelphia. Once there, the Tar Heels throttled Indiana on the strength of a 1.42 points per possession effort. In the regional final, North Carolina answered a spirited charge from Notre Dame midway through the second half by dominating the paint in pulling away for a 14-point win.

The Coach

Roy Williams. This is Williams’ eighth Final Four appearance in 28 seasons as a head coach, the fourth-most all-time behind Mike Krzyzewski, John Wooden and his mentor, Dean Smith. Williams has faced his share of criticism over the last couple of years given the academic scandal involving North Carolina, but his team has successfully blocked out that distraction this season. Williams is moving towards the end of his tenure as a head coach (some retirement rumors have been floating around) and his team will head to Houston as the clear favorite to cut down the nets for what would be Williams’ third national championship at his alma mater.

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Rush the Court will be providing wall-to-wall coverage of each of the NCAA Tournament from each of the 13 sites this year. Follow our NCAA Tourney specific Twitter accounts at @RTCEastregion, @RTCMWregion,@RTCSouthregion and @RTCWestregion. 

Three Key Takeaways.

Marcus Paige’s Best Game in Over a Month Led UNC to the Final Four (USA Today Images)

1. Nobody can keep North Carolina off the offensive glass. It didn’t matter how much size Indiana had in the low post. The simple truth is that the Tar Heels have more frontcourt depth than any other team in the field and can attack the glass in waves. A starting lineup of 6’8″, 6’10” and 6’10” creates instant mismatches and posed a problem all night long for a group of Hoosiers that only wanted to get out and run. The team is impressively connected when it comes to timing and anticipation and each forward is skilled in maneuvering himself to gain good rebounding position inside.
2. Indiana’s defensive struggles became its downfall. The Hoosiers’ 13-of-31 performance from three and 41 percent shooting night from the field was not disparate from their season averages. In fact, their 1.23 points per possession tonight was better than its season average of 1.18 PPP. In the wake of a 15-point defeat, there was no degree of shooting that could have saved Indiana in this game. The effort instead needed to come on the defensive end, and it wasn’t there. The Tar Heels, normally a subpar 31 percent three-point shooting team, shot an uncanny 11-of-20 from deep and complemented it with a 50 percent shooting inside. That long-range shooting performance was certainly not something Tom Crean expected and the added focus on defending the perimeter resulted in wide-open driving lanes.
3. Does any team have the personnel to beat the Tar Heels? With a string of outright dominant performances starting with its rout of the ACC Tournament field, the question lingers. Yes, UNC shot abnormally well against Indiana, but the fact remains that few teams have the frontcourt depth and defensive wherewithal to slow it down. Moreover, attempting to beat Roy Williams at his own game by pushing the tempo is a recipe for disaster. Interestingly, five of the Tar Heels’ six losses this season have been in games played well below the team’s average tempo.

Star of the Game. Marcus Paige was on point tonight from the moment the ball was tipped. The senior point guard got off to an explosive start, connecting on four consecutive threes in the opening five minutes to give his team an early lead. He ultimately finished with 21 points — his highest output since February 6 — along with six assists. His outside shooting sparked what was North Carolina’s second-most efficient offensive performance of the season.

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Rush the Court will be providing wall-to-wall coverage of each of the NCAA Tournament from each of the 13 sites this year. Follow our NCAA Tourney specific Twitter accounts at @RTCEastregion, @RTCMWregion,@RTCSouthregion and @RTCWestregion.

Three Key Takeaways.

Roy Williams and North Carolina advance to Philadelphia, where they will meet Indiana in the Sweet Sixteen. (USA TODAY Sports)

1. Shooting is kind of important in the game of basketball. North Carolina is pretty good at putting the ball through the hoop, but Providence is terrible at it (the Friars are 251st in the country in effective field goal percentage). Tonight was more of the same, as North Carolina made 53 percent of its field goals, while the Friars only converted 40 percent. Providence was particularly chilly from deep, making just six of their 23 attempts from three-point range. Ed Cooley’s squad is athletic, good defensively, and always competes hard. They just aren’t a great shooting team, and it caught up with them tonight against a high-level opponent.
2. North Carolina’s toughness was put to the test. It was not a pretty contest for most of the way, but it may have been the type of game that this North Carolina team needed. Many have questioned whether these Tar Heels are physically and mentally tough enough to win a national title. Yes, they showed some heart in winning at Duke and besting Virginia for the ACC Championship recently, but the pressure is different when it’s a win or go home situation. Tonight the Tar Heels were playing an athletic squad that challenged them physically (and verbally), but North Carolina picked up its intensity when it needed to and kept the Friars at arm’s length for most of the second half before delivering the knockout punch in the game’s final eight minutes.
3. Oops – he Dunn it again. For the second straight game, Providence star Kris Dunn missed a significant amount of first half action after picking up two early fouls. Thursday, Ed Cooley was able to get away with sitting Dunn for 10 minutes when he was whistled for that second foul. But North Carolina is a different animal. Even though Providence actually outscored the Tar Heels by one after Dunn went to the bench with 11 minutes to go before halftime, the Friars ended the half by missing their last seven shots to give North Carolina momentum going into the break. Who knows if anything would have turned out differently had Dunn not sat out so much of the first half, but you have to like the Friars chances a little better with their best player on the floor for even a few more minutes.

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Rush the Court will be providing wall-to-wall coverage of each of the NCAA Tournament from each of the 13 sites this year. Follow our NCAA Tourney specific Twitter accounts at @RTCEastregion, @RTCMWregion,@RTCSouthregion and @RTCWestregion.

Three Key Takeaways.

Brice Johnson’s Tar Heels Pulled Away With a Big Second Half (USA Today Images)

1. North Carolina’s defense was not the same as it was at the ACC Tournament. After shutting down two of the nation’s top offenses in the ACC Tournament (Notre Dame & Virginia), nobody expected a #16 seed to light up the Tar Heels just five days later. But that’s what occurred in the first half of today’s game, as Florida Gulf Coast shot 60 percent from the floor against North Carolina before the intermission. Roy Williams’ team was victimized often by dribble penetration which led to easy buckets, and a stark lack of teamwide energy also showed up on the boards, with Florida Gulf Coast holding a +7 rebound edge at the half. The team of course picked up its energy level after halftime, holding the Eagles to only 30.3 percent shooting the rest of the way.
2. Florida Gulf Coast was not a typical #16 seed. Normally you don’t see automatic bid teams that advance from the First Four built like Joe Dooley’s squad. This doesn’t necessarily mean that the Eagles are better than the average #16 seed — just that they are constructed differently. Usually those teams are built around plucky little guards that survive by driving and kicking for long-range bombs. Florida Gulf Coast is not a small team (it ranks 93rd in the country in average height), nor does it rely much on perimeter shooting — ranking 348th out of 351 Division I schools in three-point attempts. That style of play worked against the Tar Heels for a half, but it eventually played right into North Carolina’s hands — a team that plays in a similar way but is bigger and better at it.
3. The backcourt of North Carolina is becoming elite. We all recognize that the strength of this North Carolina team is in the paint. The Tar Heels have an All-American up front in Brice Johnson and excellent depth to complement him in the post. But while those interior players have been playing at a high level all season, it has been the improvement in the backcourt that puts North Carolina in position for a deep NCAA Tournament run. Marcus Paige and Joel Berry can each handle the ball, shoot from distance (although not consistently) and drive to score. They are also playing good defense on the perimeter. Today this duo combined for 24 points, 10 rebounds, seven assists and only two turnovers. They also helped hold the Eagles to 2-of-11 shooting from three-point range.

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