Guards Carry Teams to Point of No Return

For a moment, take your eyes off the coaching carousel set in motion by Roy Williams that led to Illinois’ hiring Bruce Weber and follow the lottery balls of recruiting that linked point guards Raymond Felton and Deron Williams.

The short story: Deron Williams is at Illinois because Felton chose North Carolina.

“I actually wanted to go to North Carolina all my life,” Williams said. “That was where I wanted to go, but it didn’t happen.

“Carolina did recruit me a little bit, but I guess I was their second option to Felton.”

And the Tar Heels were Felton’s first choice.

“Everybody wanted to go to Carolina, just about,” Felton said. “We knew everybody wasn’t going to be able to go there.”

For that, Weber, the Illinois coach, will count his blessings.

“He’s the foundation of our team,” he said of Williams. “He is a very special player. The true point guard is a rarity nowadays, and he truly is a solid point guard.”

Here they are, three years later, and only one of these players will be able to get what he wants. The national championship is at stake for North Carolina and Illinois, and once again, the course of college basketball history will be affected by the decisions these two point guards make.

You’ve been asked to prioritize your possessions before, detailing which you would grab if your house were on fire or what you’d take to a deserted island. The coaching equivalent can be found in the NCAA tournament box scores.

The answer to the un-posed question, “Which of your players is the most essential to your team’s survival?” is in the minutes-played column.

The two coaches in tonight’s championship game, North Carolina’s Williams and Illinois’ Weber, value their point guards the way a pool shark regards his favorite cue. Since the tournament started, Williams has played Felton 32.6 minutes of the possible 40 a game, the most of any Tar Heel. Weber leans even more heavily on Williams, using him 37.4 minutes a game, including 44 of the 45 minutes in the overtime victory over Arizona in the regional final.

When asked what he fears about taking Williams out of the game, Weber exhaled at the thought. “When he’s not in there, we definitely struggle,” Weber said. “We get stagnant. He has a great feel for getting us into this offense.”

Roy Williams didn’t remove Felton in the second half of North Carolina’s blowout of Michigan State in the national semifinal until the final minute.

“He didn’t need to be taken out of the game,” Williams said. “I just love guys that compete. His heart’s about as big as anybody’s I’ve ever been around. He’s one of those big names.”

Felton and Deron Williams are the two biggest names in this big, big game between the top two teams in the country. Sure, there’s Sean May, Rashad McCants, and various and assorted Williamses on North Carolina. Illinois’ Dee Brown was the Big Ten player of the year and gets all the magazine covers. But Felton and Deron Williams are the two most indispensable.

That’s why Weber said, “If you talk about an X factor, it might be foul trouble.”

Saturday night, Weber took Williams out for the final 1:41 of the first half to prevent Williams from picking up his third foul and Louisville cut a seven-point Illinois lead to three.

No other player in the tournament can barely dent the scoring column and still have an impact on the game at both ends of the court the way Williams can. He scored only five points Saturday and Weber couldn’t stop praising him. It’s because Williams limited Louisville star Francisco Garcia to four points on two-for-10 shooting, a week after he helped limit Arizona’s Salim Stoudamire to two-for-13 shooting. Williams also had nine assists, giving him 43 in the tournament.

The Illini’s precision passing game starts with him. It isn’t just about moving the ball, it’s about getting it to the right place at the right time.

“When somebody’s shooting well, they expect the ball to come to you,” Illinois guard Luther Head said. “Having a point guard like Deron, you know he’s going to find you.”

Williams developed a love of passing from watching Jason Kidd play for the Mavericks when Williams was a kid in Dallas. He got his nose for defense from his mother.

“She was the defensive player of the year for her high school team,” Williams said. “She got me started on defense, and she got me started on passing. It was something she always stressed, which is pretty rare because everybody wants to score. She stressed that defense was important.”

Felton is more of a scoring threat when he needs to be. He scored 29 points against Clemson in the quarterfinals of the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament. (Williams’ three-game total for the Big Ten tournament was 28.) He has developed into a more dangerous three-point shooter, making 43% of his three-point attempts to Williams’ 37% this season. In the tournament he has been a playmaker, averaging 6.8 assists in North Carolina’s five games.

Felton is faster than Williams, although Williams is at least two inches taller and stronger.

“I have a wonderful feeling about this young man,” Roy Williams said, looking at Felton sitting next to him at the interview table. “You watch him play, he’s 6-1 [he looked over at Felton again and smiled] -- yeah, right -- but he’s all heart. That’s what I love about him more than anything. The competitiveness, the dedication, the desire.”

The funny thing is, he could have used the same adjectives about Deron Williams -- North Carolina’s Deron Williams, had things been just a little different.

J.A. Adande can be reached at j.a.adande@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Adande, go to latimes.com/Adande.