North Carolina Tar Heels advance to men's basketball national final, close Duke Blue Devils coach Mike Krzyzewski's legendary career
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3 April 2022, 03:29
10 min read
Share to FacebookShare to TwitterEmail this articleNEW ORLEANS -- On the first day of practice last summer, Hubert Davis put a photo of the Superdome in the North Carolina locker room. He told his players to tell their parents to book hotels and flights for New Orleans.
Davis was confident: The Tar Heels were good enough to reach the Final Four in his first year as their head coach.
An expectation that seemed unrealistic at the time and pure fantasy three weeks ago now looks prophetic. North Carolina beat Duke 81-77 in an all-time classic Saturday night, and the Tar Heels will face Kansas in Monday's national championship game.
An 8-seed, the Tar Heels are tied for the lowest-seeded team to reach the final since seeding began in 1979.
"Our belief all year was strong that we can get to this point," junior center Armando Bacot said. "I don't know if it was belief or if it was just us being delusional. I mean, at every point of the season, we knew if we came together as a team that we could get to the championship. And that's what we did."
North Carolina's 12 title-game appearances match Kentucky for the second most in men's NCAA tournament history. UCLA is first with 13.
Given the historic ramifications of the first NCAA tournament game in the sport's greatest rivalry -- a spot in the title game at stake and potentially coach Mike Krzyzewski's final game -- it was always going to be difficult to match the incredible pregame buzz leading up to Saturday's contest. But as the Duke-UNC rivalry tends to do, it answered the bell.
The arena was filled with an extraordinary energy in the minutes leading up to tipoff. The crowd of 70,602 didn't relax for the next two hours in a game that featured 18 lead changes.
"I think it reached a level that you would expect," Krzyzewski said. "I mean, the crowd was standing most of the game, I think. It was a heck of a game."
Coming out of the final media timeout with 3:32 remaining in the game, Davis took off his eyeglasses to clean them and let out a slight smirk to nobody in particular. He might have been thinking what everyone else in the Superdome was thinking: It doesn't get much better than this in college basketball.
Duke. North Carolina. 67-67. Spot in the championship game on the line.
The drama was only heightened from there. Trevor Keels, who finished with 19 points, hit a 3 with 2:07 left to give Duke a one-point lead, followed by Brady Manek hitting one on the next possession and Wendell Moore answering with a 3 of his own with 1:20 left.
R.J. Davis, who carried North Carolina in the first half with 14 points, was fouled on the ensuing possession, hitting both free throws to give the Tar Heels a one-point lead.
It was going to take one of the two teams making the first mistake in the final minute, and on Saturday night, the Blue Devils blinked first. Mark Williams missed two free throws on the next possession with 46 seconds left, and Caleb Love came down and hit a 3 to give the Tar Heels a four-point lead with 25 seconds left. Love would ice the game for the Tar Heels in the final seconds with free throws.
"Coach puts the ball in me or R.J.'s hand and tells us to make a play," Love said. "R.J. and me have been doing it all season. Whoever has the ball, we both made great plays, and it just happened to be in my hands, so I made the play. And we came out on top."
Krzyzewski's career officially comes to a close one step short of the sport's biggest stage. He ends his career with five national championships, nine appearances in the title game and 13 Final Fours.
North Carolina made sure he wouldn't get to a 10th title game.
Neither team showed many signs of being caught up in the monumental pregame hype once the game tipped off. They traded blows for most of the first half, with Duke's six-point lead with 1:30 left the biggest gap in the opening 20 minutes.
One key entering Saturday's game was foul trouble; which team would be able to avoid it? Early on, it was advantage North Carolina. Williams picked up his second foul with 15:16 left in the first half and sat on the bench the rest of the half. Theo John gave Duke really effective minutes off the bench in place of Williams, but he picked up four fouls in 11 minutes of action, forcing Krzyzewski to use a smaller lineup with Paolo Banchero at center for the final four minutes of the first half.
Duke was at its best getting downhill and attacking the rim off the dribble. The Blue Devils were getting to the paint before the Tar Heels' defense was set or finding gaps in their half-court defense. They outscored North Carolina 26-14 in the paint in the first 20 minutes. The Tar Heels countered by getting 14 first-half points from Davis and forcing the ball inside to Bacot, who proved impossible to contain in the first half.
One particular play -- multiple offensive rebounds resulting in Bacot going to the line for free throws -- prompted a couple of celebratory air punches from Davis on the sideline.
"Way to go! Good job! Keep attacking!" he yelled to his players.
Only a Jeremy Roach three-point play with 3.1 seconds left in the half separated the teams going into the break, with Duke up 37-34.
