Arizona a Winner by 99-79 : North Carolina Turns Back Michigan, 78-69

For a time Friday night, Arizona Coach Lute Olson said college basketball’s winningest team was playing with a loser’s mentality.

“At halftime, we told them to come out and play to win, not to lose,” Olson said after All-America Sean Elliott scored 25 points and Arizona pulled away with a 17-3 second-half burst en route to a 99-79 rout of Iowa in an NCAA tournament West Regional semifinal.

“We had to make them (the Hawkeyes) pay for their defensive pressure. We played more aggressively and made them pay for extending the court.”

The Wildcats will play North Carolina Sunday, with the winner gaining a Final Four berth. The Tar Heels defeated Michigan, 78-69, in an earlier semifinal.

Anthony Cook added 19 points, and Steve Kerr and Tom Tolbert had 17 each for No. 2 Arizona, the region’s top seed. The Wildcats, 34-2, have won their three tourney games by an average of 29.7 points.

B.J. Armstrong led No. 18 Iowa, the fifth-seed, with 27 points and Roy Marble contributed 14. The Hawkeyes, who had fallen to the Wildcats 66-59 last Dec. 12 at Iowa City, finished 24-10 and were the third Big Ten team eliminated from the NCAA Tournament Friday.

“Fundamentally, they are as sound a team as I’ve ever seen,” Iowa Coach Tom Davis said of the Wildcats, who turned the ball over only 9 times. “We felt good going into the half, but we came out sluggish and they made a few 3-pointers. We were a step slow on defense and rebounding and that made a big difference.”

Iowa, which averages 93.4 points per game, closed to 53-43 with 15 minutes remaining before the Wildcats broke the game open. Elliott had 8 points in the 17-3 spree, which ended with his jumper that gave Arizona a 70-46 advantage with 11 1/2 minutes to go. Iowa’s highly regarded fullcourt pressure was never a factor.

The Wildcats had opened a 36-23 lead with 2:21 left in the first half, but Armstrong engineered an 11-2 blitz that got Iowa within 38-34 by halftime.

The Hawkeyes got to 26-21, then Kerr and Ken Lofton hit consecutive 3-pointers to open the margin to 32-21 with 3:31 to go. After Armstrong scored for Iowa, Elliott put down a soft jumper and Lofton converted a scoop shot to make it 36-23.

Armstrong had 7 points in the final run, which he began with a 3-pointer and ended with a layup off a steal.

The Wildcats had reached the third round with romps over Cornell and Seton Hall. Iowa had advanced by beating Florida State and Nevada Las Vegas.

North Carolina Coach Dean Smith says he is becoming a believer in his youthful Tar Heels.

The Tar Heels, 27-6, rode 71% shooting in the second half and tenacious defense to their victory over Michigan.

“They try hard and they hang in there when things aren’t going good,” Smith said. “They keep surprising me because they’re so young.”

J.R. Reid, the standout sophomore forward who scored 18 points and grabbed 8 rebounds, said the Tar Heels won because they didn’t stop hustling.

“People have been saying all along that we aren’t as talented as other (North Carolina) teams, our guards are too slow and all that,” Reid said. “But we are determined and we gut it out when the other team lets up. We’ve got some character on this team.”

Reid said North Carolina’s plan was to match the physical Wolverines of the Big Ten bump for shove inside, then try to wear out their big men by running the floor without letting up.

“We love to bang inside,” said Reid, who carries 256 pounds on his 6-foot-9 frame. “But all our big men can run the floor, and with our depth, we just wore them down. That’s why we were getting some loose balls at the end -- they were hurting.”

With North Carolina leading 62-57 with just less five minutes remaining, guard Jeff Lebo ran into teammate Scott Williams and lost the ball. But it plopped right into Reid’s hands as he stood near the basket, resulting in a slam-dunk.

The Tar Heels then hit another basket for a 66-57 lead the cold-shooting Wolverines could not overcome.

Michigan trailed by 1 point at halftime. But while the Tar Heels made 17 of 24 shots in the second half, Michigan was 16 of 31.

Williams, a 6-10 sophomore from Los Angeles, led the Tar Heels with 19 points.

“That’s the way we like to play,” Williams said. “Play hard and with a lot of feeling and things will go right for you. That and block out your man.”

Smith credited Lebo, who was playing with a fatigue stress fracture in his left ankle. The 6-3 junior scored 9 points and help hold high-scoring guard Gary Grant, who averages 21.5 a game, to only 7 points.

“It was a courageous game for Jeff,” Smith said. “He was hurting, but he went hard all the way.” Lebo played 33 minutes.

“Grant can make so much happen if you give him room,” Lebo said, “so I just tried to keep between him and the basket and make him shoot from the outside.”

It worked. Grant made only three of 10 field-goal attempts and never got to the foul line.

“I just didn’t get into the flow right off the bat,” Grant said. “It just was of those games where you don’t have it. I feel bad about it, but there’s not much you can do about it.”

Grant’s scoring void was taken up by guard Rumeal Robinson, who scored 29 points. Robinson, who also had 6 assists, 5 rebounds and 2 steals, produced 10 of Michigan’s first 12 points.

“He was great,” Lebo said. “I was suprised by how good he was.”

But he wasn’t enough.