“There’s definitely two big guys inside at all times that we have to worry about”.
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It’s an example why the Tar Heels are just fine with the status quo. This is Williams’ ninth appearance in the Final Four and he reminisced about his journey at Kansas and UNC and tries to enjoy this one the same as the others.
Now Berry himself a Cousy finalist is dealing with drama, too, though coach Roy Williams dismissed any notion of deja vu. Meeks pulled down a monster total of 17 rebounds against Kentucky and will look for more of the same in this one.
Marcus Paige did it past year for North Carolina with a clutch basket late in the national title game before Villanova’s Kris Jenkins knocked down a game-winner.
Where: University of Phoenix Stadium, Glendale, Ariz.
To illustrate this point further, NPR’s Frank Deford once wrote, “Just because the Yankees have won all these years, the Northeast has never said, ‘Hey, we got the best baseball up here'”.
Trained eyes, then, might look repeatedly a few lines over to the right of the rebounds in the box score, to Bell’s number of fouls and amount of foul trouble. Especially for me and the rest of the seniors, this is our last year and there have been points through the year when we tell the younger guys how much fun it is.
Gonzaga also has a big-time guard in Nigel Williams-Goss and he should match-up with Thornwell for much of the game. “I’m just trying to go out there and help my team win as best I can”. Now four conferences each have one team: the SEC (South Carolina), the West Coast (Gonzaga), the Pac-12 (Oregon) and the Atlantic Coast (North Carolina). He cited Oregon’s Midwest Regional final victory over Kansas as the most impressive performance of the NCAA Tournament and noted that SC arguably handed the Vols their most thorough beating of the season.
OR was the No. 3 seed in the Midwest and beat Iona, Rhode Island, Michigan and Kansas on the way to the Final Four. We really miss Chris (Boucher) and I think it’s going to show up in this next ball game.
“Kansas, Duke and even MI, to beat them all says something”, OR senior guard Dylan Ennis said.
UNC will turn to Justin Jackson, who led the team in scoring this year with 18.2 points per game. He made 25 of 40 3-point shots in the past six games.
Jackson was a first-team All-American for Sporting News, which was chosen following the regular season.
“I don’t know how coherent guys were”, says Justin Jackson. “But we will have our work cut out for us on Saturday”.
Tennessee lost 69-65 in overtime to OR at the Maui Invitational, an event that was won by North Carolina. “They rebound well and we are big on offensive rebounding”.
At schools like UNC, such runs are expected annually, but while the Tar Heels are one of the two best teams remaining in the Big Dance, there won’t be a ton of outside pressure weighing on this group. “We were glad it occurred on Wednesday so I could get it over with”. Dorsey has averaged 24.5 points per game in the tournament while hitting 13 three pointers while shooting 67% from the field. The sophomore reserve forward is averaging just 5.8 points per game in 14.4 minutes.
Unlike UNC’s Luke Maye – whose performance in March has vaulted him into the spotlight – Dorsey has been doing this all season. His jumper with 0.3 seconds left beat Kentucky 75-73.
Given Oregon’s loss of Boucher, the Tar Heels have the height advantage at every position on the front line – even guard Theo Pinson is almost the same height as Dillon Brooks, who has played 81 percent of all power forward minutes over the past five games for the Ducks.
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They maybe knew too much, but if they weren’t from SC then Martin would have had little chance.
