It Was Worth More Than 17-Year Wait

It’s over. Unfortunately.

I’m as happy as anyone else that North Carolina Coach Roy Williams’ reign as the best coach never to win a national championship is over.

I just hated to see this game end. I hated to see this tournament end. I hated to see this once-in-a-lifetime-ride end this way for Illinois. You hate to see a team that won as many games as any team in NCAA history, a group that played with so much heart branded a loser.

That’s what the Illini go down as, officially, after North Carolina prevailed, 75-70, in a memorable NCAA championship game.

Labels can be so cruel. Sometimes there’s no amount of success that can prevent you from being defined by your failure.

It’s what Williams knows all too well.

So when he finally shed enough of his players and assistant coaches to go shake hands with Illinois Coach Bruce Weber, he told him he’d been in his position before, he knows exactly what he’s feeling.

This trip to St. Louis marked Williams’ fifth Final Four appearance, a distinction he shared with Bob Knight, Guy Lewis, Lute Olson and Rick Pitino. Only five coaches have more: John Wooden (12), Dean Smith (11), Mike Krzyzewski (10), Denny Crum (6), Adolph Rupp (6).

In that illustrious group, only Williams and Lewis had not claimed a net after the final game of the season. Williams spent 15 seasons at Kansas, where he made his first four trips to the Final Four before coming to his alma mater two years ago.

Krzyzewski’s first championship in 1991 came at Williams’ expense. Jim Boeheim, the Syracuse coach who was named to the 2005 Hall of Fame class Monday, won his first championship against Williams two years ago.

Monday night, after another 2005 tournament classic, after Illinois stormed back from a 15-point deficit to tie the score with 2:40 remaining before North Carolina made the big plays at the end, it finally was Williams’ turn.

He didn’t have much time to gather his thoughts before he saw the 6-foot-9 body of junior center Sean May.

“He was running at me,” Williams said. “I just wanted to hug that big rascal as long as I could hug him.”

Williams owed the championship to him.

May dominated the game, making 10 of 11 shots from the field and six of eight from the free-throw line to score 26 points along with 10 rebounds. He helped North Carolina to a 34-18 edge in points in the paint.

It’s mostly a function of seat location, but let the record show that Williams hugged May’s mother before he hugged his own wife after the game.

Yes, North Carolina’s players proved to be better. They made 51.9% of their shots. They had May inside and the 6-foot-9 Jawad Williams’ making three-pointers outside and Rashad McCants’ scoring from all points between.

They won because their coach spent the first two sessions after the regionals emphasizing defense on a hoopless practice court. (They limited Illinois and Michigan State to a combined 37% shooting at the Final Four.)

They won because their coach was relaxed and smiling before the game, and his team looked just as loose, while the Illini looked tight.

They won because he gambled and left Raymond Felton on the court with two fouls for a long stretch in the first half (switching to a zone defense to protect him), and with four fouls for the final 5 1/2 minutes of the second half.

Felton made the key plays in crunch time, stealing a Luther Head pass and making three of four free throws in the final minute to preserve the victory.

Felton was great throughout the game. He had 17 points and seven assists, and was instrumental in getting the Tar Heels to focus on their inside advantage.

After a series of ill-advised three-pointers and jump shots allowed Illinois to pull within two points in the second half, Felton made sure May got the ball on six consecutive possessions. The results: 10 points for May and a three-pointer by Jawad Williams on a May assist.

“He was just killing,” Felton said of May. “Why wouldn’t I give it to him. Everybody was screaming: ‘Get the ball inside to Sean.’ It was the right thing to do.”

Amazing how often the Tar Heels did the right thing, and how often they credited their coach for it.

“It all boiled down to what coach has been saying all season,” Felton said of his late-game heroics. “Do whatever it takes to get a win. Make it happen. And that’s what I did.”

When May was asked what his favorite memories of this game will be, he said: “The best thing to me is, Coach said: you need three straight stops. We got three straight stops, but we didn’t get the ball.”

The sight of Williams’ crying after games had become as much a tournament tradition as the “One Shining Moment” video.

The answers Williams gave in his on-court interviews and when he first got to the interview room sounded almost rehearsed. He talked about what it meant for his assistant coaches and his players and his family. And he remained, surprisingly, unemotional, until the end, when he started welling up while talking about his high school coach, Buddy Baldwin.

“When I’ve been so emotional after losses, I felt that I let those kids down,” Williams said. “Rightly or wrongly I felt there was always something I could have done better. I also had those emotions because I knew some of those kids that I truly loved, I wasn’t going to coach again. [Monday] I probably let them down anyway. But they’re not going to remember that. The other thing is, that they’re going to be part of my life forever, and this moment will be something I’ll share with them.”

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