The North Carolina Tar Heels and coach Roy Williams answered their critics and played as a team last night to defeat the Illinois Fighting Illini 75-70 in the finals of the NCAA Division I men’s basketball tournament held in St. Louis, Missouri.
“This was a victory for North Carolina’s team,” said coach Williams, emphasizing the word “team.”
This Tar Heels squad had been the target of criticism all season for being a team loaded with individual talent but limited team cohesiveness, despite winning over 30 games and the regular season ACC title. In contrast, Illinois was praised as the model of unselfish play and unity.
It was difficult to paint the two teams with such broad sports psychology brush strokes after the Heels used crisp passing and an effective inside-outside game to go up by 13 at the half. Carolina never trailed in the second half as they staved off Illinois rally after Illinois rally.
Illinois, unable to penetrate the Tar Heel defense off the dribble, relied on its perimeter game. That strategy contributed to the first half deficit as shots missed their mark but it also fueled their second half comeback rallies, the last three-pointer from Luther Head coming at 2:40 left to knot the score at 70-70.
Moments later Rashad McCants, usually the lightning rod for Carolina criticism, found Marvin Williams under the basket for the game-winning assist. With the Illini defense stiffening and no open shot to be found, McCants drove the baseline in a last-ditch effort to create a scoring opportunity. Drawing multiple Illini defenders, he flipped a reverse alley-oop to Williams who tipped it in to give the Tar Heels the lead and the game.
Raymond Felton sealed the game with 3 for 4 shooting on his final two trips to the line.
Tar Heel Sean May, who capped a memorable season with 26 points and 10 rebounds in the finals, was named the Final Four's Most Outstanding Player.
Coach Williams, too, had often been a target of criticism for reaching the Final Four four times as the coach of the Kansas Jayhawks without a championship to show for it. Williams entered last night’s game as the only active coach with 40 wins in a NCAA tournament play without a championship.
After the game Williams said, “I’m really not a better coach than I was three hours ago.” Those words, not doubt were carefully chosen by Williams. They are nearly identical to the words spoken by his mentor former Tar Heel coach Dean Smith in 1982 after his Carolina squad defeated Georgetown for Smith’s first national title. That victory came after Smith had been ridiculed for reaching the Final Four without ever winning the big one.
