North Carolina defeats Gonzaga for redemption in national championship

It was an ugly affair, filled with 44 fouls and 52 free throws but, ultimately, the contest with the result the Tar Heels (33-7) simply had to have.

Roy Williams had a lot on his plate this weekend with his North Carolina basketball team playing in the Final Four on Saturday and getting ready for the national championship game Monday night.

The Zags were effective at limiting North Carolina’s transition opportunities that are the foundation of their offense and eliminated the three-point line as the Tar Heels shot 2-13 from the arc. Gonzaga’s Mark Few is still looking for his first championship after 18 brilliant seasons leading the Bulldogs from a tiny Jesuit school in Spokane, Washington, into college basketball’s big-time.

But to say everything went right for Roy Williams’ team at this Final Four would be less than the truth.

Williams-Goss, 6-3, is the West Coast Conference player of the year.

Kennedy Meeks matched his career high with 25 points and grabbed 14 rebounds as North Carolina won 77-76.

Jackson’s shooting contributed mightily to North Carolina’s 31 percent from the floor before the break, and Perkins’ three three-pointers were one more than the Tar Heels team. Sadly, Karnowski’s field goal percentage was the worst by any 7-footer in an NCAA Tournament game over the past 20 years (minimum eight shot attempts). “So we were at fault just as much as anybody else”, Williams said. He even had to sit out Sunday’s practice before the title game.

Meeks and a Gonzaga player were on the court and a jump ball was called with possession to the Tar Heels.

Neither side unduly benefited from the whistlefest as referees Verne Harris, Michael Stephens and Mike Eade assessed 22 fouls apiece and made dubious calls in both teams’ favor. The strategy of fouling to create missed free throws under pressure worked perfectly, yet the most basic fundamental play wasn’t executed to give them another chance to win the game.

Most freaky sequence: With 8:02 left, Berry got called for a foul for (maybe) making contact with Karnowski and stripping the ball from the big man’s hands.

In the event of a Tar Heel victory, the winnings will be donated to the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina.

North Carolina’s reserves up front include 6-9 senior Isaiah Hicks and 6-11 freshman Tony Bradley.

“It’s a very hard game to call”, said Williams, who has now led the Tar Heels to three of the program’s six titles.

“We were negotiating our way through massive foul trouble, ones that we haven’t had all year”, Few said. “But the ones that we needed went in”. Less than 12 hours later, I found myself staring at a blatantly missed call in the pivotal moments of a national championship game with no way of telling the refs, HEY, YOU’RE MISSING A VERY OBVIOUS CALL. Jackson had 16 on a 6-for-19 night and, overall, the Tar Heels shot 35.6 percent for the game, to go with 36 percent shooting in Saturday night’s win over Oregon.

“We were going to play Collins and Karnowski together to match up size-wise and help us on the glass”, Gonzaga assistant Tommy Lloyd said.

They need to box out like insane – that’s a term you’ve probably heard in the last week – and prevent the Tar Heels from crashing the boards, as they say.