Tar Heels Gut It Out

North Carolina 71, Gonzaga 65

Although my beloved Arizona Wildcats failed – again – to reach the Final Four under head coach Sean Miller, I was greatly looking forward to this matchup.  Gonzaga made it this far with only one loss for a reason.  THEY’RE VERY GOOD.  North Carolina scrapped their way to some ugly wins along the way, but they are also quite talented.  Both teams are well-coached.[1]  I feel like an idiot for picking against these two teams.  On to the game…

First Half

• The first ten minutes of the game were a lot of fun, weren’t they? The dunk by Theo Pinson of North Carolina to open the scoring with 19:24 left made me think that this would be a fun, fast-paced game.  I wasn’t disappointed.
• Gonzaga is tough in the low post. They went on a 7-0 run after they started to continuously dump to ball in to their big men.
• Huge mental mistake by Jordan Mathews of Gonzaga to foul Carolina’s Joel Barry II on the made three-pointer with 8:49 left. Fortunately for the Zags, Barry missed the free throw.
• After the big run, the Zags blew several opportunities to turn the game into a rout. They missed easy shots and turned the ball over.
• Przemek Karnowski of Gonzaga made a blatantly obviously illegal screen with 7:09 left. Yes, it was a silly play, but it was the guard’s fault for being so far away from him as he dribbled past the screen.
• I have no idea what happened between the 7:09 mark and the 3:52 mark. It’s hard to write about a live sporting event when you have a wound-up two-year-old who is being difficult about his dinner, and you can’t pause the game.[2]  Obviously, my son is more important than the game.  I would have liked the ability to pause it.  Get with the times, NCAA.[3]
• I was about to scold Gonzaga for fouling Berry again on a three-pointer with 2:03 left, but Silas Melson buried a three for Gonzaga with 1:40 left to get the points back. Still, though.  Fouling an opponent who is shooting a three is unwise.
• My game feed froze with 1:15 left in the first. I thought technology was supposed to IMPROVE things!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!![4]
• Gonzaga did a horrendous job of boxing out with 20-30 seconds left. Carolina had THREE different shot attempts on that trip down the floor, and it ended with a Gonzaga foul, followed by two made Carolina free throws.
• I was surprised that Gonzaga was only ahead by three at the half. It felt to me like they all but dominated.
• Carolina was sooooooooooooooo lucky to only be down three at the half. They shot 31% from the field in the first half.

Second Half

• Did Gonzaga stay in the locker room and send out imposters to start the second half? They made two especially careless turnovers to start the second half.
• On the flip side, Carolina came storming out like gangbusters to start the half.
• Gonzaga airballed on their third possession, then got called (correctly) for a foul that wiped out a defensive rebound on Carolina’s ensuing possession. On that Carolina possession, Gonzaga committed another foul on the defensive rebound attempt.
• Why the heck didn’t Gonzaga call timeout after that? Beyond me.  Again, were the real Gonzaga players gagged and bound in some broom closet deep in the bowels of University of Phoenix Stadium?
• After the much-need timeout with 17:15 left, Jordan Mathews of Gonzaga made a great defensive play that could have been an easy two if not for a foul on the play. The ensuing possession ended with a great shot conversion by Collins.[5]
• After Gonzaga went up one on a three-point basket by Mathews with 16:29 left, Carolina airballed an unwise shot. Goss did a textbook boxout and drew a foul.  On the ensuing possession, Collins committed his fourth foul.  This certainly will be a factor over the final 15 minutes…
• Another Gonzaga big man – Karnowski, this time –committed a silly foul coming out of the timeout.
• What a play by Karnowski for Gonzaga with 14:33 left to make a tough layup and draw a foul! Of course, it would have helped his cause more if he had made the free throw….
• I vehemently disagreed with the travelling call on Nigel Williams-Goss of Gonzaga with 10:51 left. It looked to me like he simply pivoted.  CBS never showed a replay of it, so I don’t know if I should stick to my guns here.
• That stretch in the middle of the second half where both teams missed several consecutive shot attempts was painful to watch. It wasn’t good defense.  It was bad offense.
• The announcers were criticizing the officials with 9:54 left for the many foul calls, saying there was no flow to the game. Problem was…these were legitimate fouls.  The teams were playing sloppy defense.  They had to call these fouls to keep the game from getting out of control.
• I thought that Karnowski got away with a foul with 8:02 left. Then the officials looked at the replay and assigned a Flagrant-1 to Karnowski, which was his fourth foul.
• With 8:02 left, the three main big men for Gonzaga all had four fouls.
• After another ugly stretch of pathetic shooting, Tony Bradley of Carolina caught a blocked shot and made a nice follow with 7:40 and 7:35 left, respectively. Gonzaga followed by banking in a three at the other end, and then, with 5:03 left, Bradley missed a shot and drew a foul on the rebound.  It was Collins’ fifth and final foul.[6]
• With 4:39 left, Williams-Goss buried a long three in traffic to give the Zags a one-point lead! Wow!  Carolina immediately responded with a three of their own to go back up by two.  Now THIS is more like it!
• Haha! Someone tweeted with three minutes left that the record for fouls in a game was 84 – Arizona vs. Northern Arizona, January 26, 1953.[7]  How many guys were still eligible to play when that one ended?!???
• How many three-foot shots did Gonzaga miss in this game?
• Williams-Goss rolled his ankle big time with 1:25 left, but there was absolutely no way he was going to come out of this game.
• What a shot by Carolina senior Isaiah Hicks with 27 seconds left to give his team a three-point lead!!!!
• Carolina’s Kennedy Meeks made an unbelievable block of a shot attempt by Williams-Goss with 17 second left, then two quick passes led to a breakaway dunk by Carolina’s Justin Jackson to ice the game.
• Gonzaga made a heck of an effort. Williams-Goss is as gutsy as they come to keep playing with that obviously painful ankle injury.[8]
• I love how classy and sportsmanlike both teams are. The handshakes at the end of the game were genuine.  Both teams played their hearts out and treated each other with respect.  THAT is what we need to see more of in sports.

Final Thoughts

The poor shooting is the first thing that stuck out for me.  We tend to see low field goal percentages in the NCAA Championship games.  My guess is that it’s partly because of nerves, but mainly because of where the games are played.  Those gigantic domes are, as Larry Bird wrote in his autobiography, Drive, “bad for basketball.”  I know that the NCAA wants to sell tons of tickets, and I know that the universities have gobs of students and alumni who want to attend.  The large domes give more people an opportunity to attend.  Yes, I get that.  But the gigantic amount of space behind the backboards make it harder to aim shots.  When a player is in a high-pressure situation, that matters.

The officials took some criticism for calling a lot of fouls, but those fouls were legitimate.  They had to call them.  I know, the game had little flow for a long stretch, but had the officials let them go, the game easily could have turned into a bloodbath.  I thought the officials did a great job to keep the game from getting out of control.

Gonzaga blew a lot of opportunities to win the game, but North Carolina must be given credit for staying in the game long enough to capitalize on the Zags’ mistakes.  These were two tough, evenly-matched teams.  Don’t count Gonzaga out for playing in a mid-major conference – that is a genuinely elite program.  They will be back.

North Carolina has to feel a sense of redemption after last year’s heartbreaking, buzzer-beating loss.  They very easily could have lost this game early, but they hung in there and capitalized on Gonzaga’s missed opportunities.  It was a good win for the storied program.

Although it got ugly at times, I enjoyed it.  That was an evenly-matched game between two talented teams who fought tooth-and-nail until the end.  The game was much closer than the score.  That was, as my pastor said, “the way (basketball games) should be played.”  It was a nice end to a wild tournament.

Monday, April 3, 2017, 9:25 pm MST

[1] Mark Few of Gonzaga and Roy Williams of North Carolina have coached for a long time and have gained a high amount of respect throughout college basketball.  They run class programs.

[2] How spoiled are we?  20 years ago, pausing the game on the fly wouldn’t be possible.

[3] I immediately realized the irony of that last sentence after I finished typing it.

[4] Then, when I refreshed my browser, I lost 30 seconds of game time in order to watch yet another commercial.  As if I wouldn’t see a ton during the game.

[5] He drew a foul and made the free throw, as well.

[6] One of the announcers said we’d only have guards left soon.

[7] This game had a loooooooooooooooooong way to go to get to 84.

[8] The gutsiest ankle-injury-laden effort in a basketball game?  Isaiah Thomas, Game 6 of the 1988 NBA Finals for the Pistons against the Lakers.  Detroit deserved to win that game.