...and sometimes I hate being right, but sometimes I love being wrong. I really didn't think we could survive another awful shooting night, but y'know what? Damned if we didn't!
Since this is a night for celebrating, I'm gonna go ahead and get the bad stuff outta the way first.
the bad
- My Lord. Who would have believed we could shoot 35%... I mean we got 73 friggin shots up and only made 26 !?! Wow. And 3 pt shooting?... an almost impossible 4/27 ?!?, PLUS get outrebounded and leave too many FTs on the table in a Natty game and still win? WOW. Just WOW. Actually there are a couple of reasons for that --- stay tuned below.
- Justin's shot. Arrright, let's get real. For all Roy's harping on "hard work" --- and that's nice and all --- the REAL reason Buckets has shot so much better this season is he corrected his bad mechanics and most importantly his ARC. The few times he's slumped this season has been because he reverted back, and he did so tonight. When I saw him fling that first 3 with that old flat throw-motion from last season I said out loud "Oh shit". Then he did it again and I got somewhat nauseous because it was gonna be a long night. I was hoping he'd find it at halftime but no such luck.
- We came out sluggish and weren't fighting thru contact to get open, and not finishing strong enough. Fortunately that part got corrected.
- We had 17 empty Blown Assists and 15 Blown Transition ops. Not good.
Arrright, so much for that, let's get going to better things
the good
- For all the contact going on we TOOK CARE OF THE ROCK. Folks, we only had 4 TOs! The Zags could not say the same. They had 14, and it's the biggest reason we were able to get up so many more shots (Lord knows we needed them). We scored 15 off TOs. That helped.
- Tenacity. We may have been out-rebounded, but that was largely because we missed so many damned shots (47)
they couldn't hardly help it --- plus they're really BIG. More importantly we outdid them on the Offensive Glass and those 15 Offensive Rebounds were big, and led to 20 second chance pts.
- Big-time plays: Hicks has had a rough tourney but damned if he didn't make two of the most critical, most athletic shots ever. That hanging one-hander up 1 late was a killer --- the sort of stuff of NBA highlight reels --- and that earlier And-1 thru a mugging was also freaky-good. Add in that shot-clock buzzer beater, and Mr Hicks was Mr Clutch in the second half. Finished with 13 and 9 and a couple of Blocks
- Buckets was laying bricks but he kept playing and got his butt inside and scratched and clawed for 16 pts, and was our best FT shooter for the night 4/5... plus his big And-1 came at a critical point.
- Theo wasn't making any offensive magic but he was again a beast on the boards. 9 Rebounds from our 2-Guard!
- Tony was having trouble handling the very physical play, but toughened up and pulled down 7 Boards.
- And Joel F***ing Berry. What can you say? On Saturday he might have been 50%... tonight maybe 75%... but with the ankles still affecting his shooting and FTs (he's not getting to his toes on the follow-through the way he did when he was shooting 90%) Dog just willed us to win this one. Became the first player since Bill Walton to score 20+ in back-to-back title games! 22 pts, 6 Assists (he actually had 7) with 2 Steals and caused 2 more TOs in 37 Minutes, and how 'bout that Block against their Big guy?... and how 'bout JB posting up the 6'4 guy and converting a sweet jump-hook? Named MOP.
- Finally, Kennedy F***ing Meeks. I cannot say enough about the DEFENSE the big fella played tonight! Even with Karnowski constantly bulling in (not to mention walking like crazy) Meeks held his ground, played D with his feet and in many ways was the difference in the game. He only scored 7, but add 2 Steals and 2 Blocks to his 10 Rebounds as well. You guys know how I feel about JB's game and importance, but in all honesty, if I was voting for MOP of the Final Four, I might go with big Kennedy. Hell, he and JB should really be Co-MOPs. It's a damned shame Kennedy won't have his jersey in the rafters. His play this season earned it. He just didn't get the recognition. His bear-hug of Roy will be shown on Carolina highlight reels for generations though.
keys
- Transition: While the game got ugly at times and our breaks weren't classic we managed 8 Fast Break pts, but more importantly we scored 24 in the Secondary. Not normally good enough, but tonight was not normal.
- FTs: Good Lord, our achilles heel damn near cost us a Natty. Seriously. We were 15/26... meaning we missed 11, count em, 11 FTs! Yikes times a million. If we make our FTs at a decent rate we win this one going away. I'm also gonna use this bullet to make a comment about the officiating. I'm seeing all these complaints in the media about too many fouls called. Well, lemme tell ya, it's better than too few. I know Harris in particular has a rep of being whistle-happy, but Zaga earned every damned one of their fouls. Fact is this game was extremely "physical". And hell, given that we had to deal with friggin Michael Stephens, I feel fortunate that we got an even number of FT ops. Funny irony, at one point in the first half Mike Eades (of ALL people) actually gave us a make-up call for one of Stephens' little pieces of handywork. Anyway, my larger point is that guys like Raftery need to stop complaining about fouls actually getting called and maybe ask why there are so many games where they aren't?... and that maybe that's why players think they can get away with some pretty obvious stuff. #consistency
- JB Agression: See above. #DOG
- Defense: And folks, right here it is. THIS is what won it. We locked-ass in and played some fine defense, and Roy adjusted, such as the fact Nate was having a hard time with their size so he only got 13 minutes (still made a nice contribution though). I loved the Zone series late that resulted in a run-out. I also thought Roy would --- and he did --- switch up match-ups. Williams-Goss for example was forced to deal alternately with Justin's length, Theo's athleticism and JB's tenacity. Kid is damned good and played a nice game but we kept him out of the offensive rhythm I've seen him get against so many teams.
So there it is. We WON the NATTY! Ain't it something that there have only been 8 1seed-vs-1seed Finals matchups in NCAA history, and wouldn't ya know the Heels have played in 4 of them! --- So yeah, I would say we EARNED this one. We beat a damned fine, well-coached and experienced (avg age 22!) Gonzaga team --- their best team ever, truth be known. So... take THAT, dookies, wuffies, kats and haters in general!
And most of all, to the Tar Heel Nation, all I can say is #REDEMPTION !!!
Since this is a night for celebrating, I'm gonna go ahead and get the bad stuff outta the way first.
the bad
- My Lord. Who would have believed we could shoot 35%... I mean we got 73 friggin shots up and only made 26 !?! Wow. And 3 pt shooting?... an almost impossible 4/27 ?!?, PLUS get outrebounded and leave too many FTs on the table in a Natty game and still win? WOW. Just WOW. Actually there are a couple of reasons for that --- stay tuned below.
- Justin's shot. Arrright, let's get real. For all Roy's harping on "hard work" --- and that's nice and all --- the REAL reason Buckets has shot so much better this season is he corrected his bad mechanics and most importantly his ARC. The few times he's slumped this season has been because he reverted back, and he did so tonight. When I saw him fling that first 3 with that old flat throw-motion from last season I said out loud "Oh shit". Then he did it again and I got somewhat nauseous because it was gonna be a long night. I was hoping he'd find it at halftime but no such luck.
- We came out sluggish and weren't fighting thru contact to get open, and not finishing strong enough. Fortunately that part got corrected.
- We had 17 empty Blown Assists and 15 Blown Transition ops. Not good.
Arrright, so much for that, let's get going to better things
the good
- For all the contact going on we TOOK CARE OF THE ROCK. Folks, we only had 4 TOs! The Zags could not say the same. They had 14, and it's the biggest reason we were able to get up so many more shots (Lord knows we needed them). We scored 15 off TOs. That helped.
- Tenacity. We may have been out-rebounded, but that was largely because we missed so many damned shots (47)
they couldn't hardly help it --- plus they're really BIG. More importantly we outdid them on the Offensive Glass and those 15 Offensive Rebounds were big, and led to 20 second chance pts.- Big-time plays: Hicks has had a rough tourney but damned if he didn't make two of the most critical, most athletic shots ever. That hanging one-hander up 1 late was a killer --- the sort of stuff of NBA highlight reels --- and that earlier And-1 thru a mugging was also freaky-good. Add in that shot-clock buzzer beater, and Mr Hicks was Mr Clutch in the second half. Finished with 13 and 9 and a couple of Blocks
- Buckets was laying bricks but he kept playing and got his butt inside and scratched and clawed for 16 pts, and was our best FT shooter for the night 4/5... plus his big And-1 came at a critical point.
- Theo wasn't making any offensive magic but he was again a beast on the boards. 9 Rebounds from our 2-Guard!
- Tony was having trouble handling the very physical play, but toughened up and pulled down 7 Boards.
- And Joel F***ing Berry. What can you say? On Saturday he might have been 50%... tonight maybe 75%... but with the ankles still affecting his shooting and FTs (he's not getting to his toes on the follow-through the way he did when he was shooting 90%) Dog just willed us to win this one. Became the first player since Bill Walton to score 20+ in back-to-back title games! 22 pts, 6 Assists (he actually had 7) with 2 Steals and caused 2 more TOs in 37 Minutes, and how 'bout that Block against their Big guy?... and how 'bout JB posting up the 6'4 guy and converting a sweet jump-hook? Named MOP.
- Finally, Kennedy F***ing Meeks. I cannot say enough about the DEFENSE the big fella played tonight! Even with Karnowski constantly bulling in (not to mention walking like crazy) Meeks held his ground, played D with his feet and in many ways was the difference in the game. He only scored 7, but add 2 Steals and 2 Blocks to his 10 Rebounds as well. You guys know how I feel about JB's game and importance, but in all honesty, if I was voting for MOP of the Final Four, I might go with big Kennedy. Hell, he and JB should really be Co-MOPs. It's a damned shame Kennedy won't have his jersey in the rafters. His play this season earned it. He just didn't get the recognition. His bear-hug of Roy will be shown on Carolina highlight reels for generations though.
keys
- Transition: While the game got ugly at times and our breaks weren't classic we managed 8 Fast Break pts, but more importantly we scored 24 in the Secondary. Not normally good enough, but tonight was not normal.
- FTs: Good Lord, our achilles heel damn near cost us a Natty. Seriously. We were 15/26... meaning we missed 11, count em, 11 FTs! Yikes times a million. If we make our FTs at a decent rate we win this one going away. I'm also gonna use this bullet to make a comment about the officiating. I'm seeing all these complaints in the media about too many fouls called. Well, lemme tell ya, it's better than too few. I know Harris in particular has a rep of being whistle-happy, but Zaga earned every damned one of their fouls. Fact is this game was extremely "physical". And hell, given that we had to deal with friggin Michael Stephens, I feel fortunate that we got an even number of FT ops. Funny irony, at one point in the first half Mike Eades (of ALL people) actually gave us a make-up call for one of Stephens' little pieces of handywork. Anyway, my larger point is that guys like Raftery need to stop complaining about fouls actually getting called and maybe ask why there are so many games where they aren't?... and that maybe that's why players think they can get away with some pretty obvious stuff. #consistency
- JB Agression: See above. #DOG
- Defense: And folks, right here it is. THIS is what won it. We locked-ass in and played some fine defense, and Roy adjusted, such as the fact Nate was having a hard time with their size so he only got 13 minutes (still made a nice contribution though). I loved the Zone series late that resulted in a run-out. I also thought Roy would --- and he did --- switch up match-ups. Williams-Goss for example was forced to deal alternately with Justin's length, Theo's athleticism and JB's tenacity. Kid is damned good and played a nice game but we kept him out of the offensive rhythm I've seen him get against so many teams.
So there it is. We WON the NATTY! Ain't it something that there have only been 8 1seed-vs-1seed Finals matchups in NCAA history, and wouldn't ya know the Heels have played in 4 of them! --- So yeah, I would say we EARNED this one. We beat a damned fine, well-coached and experienced (avg age 22!) Gonzaga team --- their best team ever, truth be known. So... take THAT, dookies, wuffies, kats and haters in general!
And most of all, to the Tar Heel Nation, all I can say is #REDEMPTION !!!
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