Ultimate Arch Rivals

When they became tired of stodgy basketball, when they wearied of letting the basketball carom off their chests or skitter out of bounds, when they thought about passing once or twice instead of shooting as quickly as possible, the North Carolina Tar Heels took off.

They scattered Michigan State into a disorganized mess and they ran straight into the national championship game for the first time since 1993. After trailing, 38-33, at halftime, North Carolina grabbed control of their NCAA semifinal game with a breathless 18-3 run and beat the crooked-shooting Spartans, 87-71, Saturday night at the Edward Jones Dome.

The No. 2-ranked Tar Heels (32-4) will meet No. 1 Illinois, a 72-57 winner over Louisville, Monday night for the national championship. It will be the first matchup of the Associated Press’ top two teams since UCLA beat Kentucky in 1975 and John Wooden won his last national title. Illinois and North Carolina also are seeded No. 1 and No. 2 in the tournament.

Tar Heel Coach Roy Williams will try again for his first national title Monday night, but he wasn’t thinking about that during the first 20 minutes Saturday.

“In the first half,” he said, “it didn’t look like North Carolina out there. We didn’t rebound the ball, we didn’t dive on the floor for loose balls. We just didn’t play North Carolina basketball.”

The game was tied, 49-49, with 15 minutes 16 seconds to play. That’s when Tar Heel senior Jawad Williams scored the first two of what would be 11 consecutive North Carolina points with a 10-foot jump shot.

By the time the Spartans (26-7) scored again, almost four minutes later on a Kelvin Torbert three-pointer, North Carolina led, 61-49. The score would be 67-52 before Michigan State made another basket.

The Tar Heels became dominant in part because Sean May became tough.

“I was too lackadaisical in the first half,” said May, who had 18 of his 22 points and six of his seven rebounds in the second half. “I didn’t put my whole self into it and I was really mad at myself in the first half.”

Williams was furious at the whole team at halftime. He raised his voice and used words that guard Raymond Felton said could not be repeated.

“Coach Williams was mad,” Felton said. “Real mad.”

“In the first half,” Williams said, “we didn’t compete the way we did all year long. We didn’t rebound the ball, we didn’t dive on the floor, we didn’t take charges, we didn’t do all those little things that make a difference.”

Michigan State took a 35-27 lead, its biggest of the game, on back-to-back three-pointers by guard Shannon Brown. The orange-wearing Illinois fans were cheering loudly for the Spartans, hoping for the first all-Big Ten championship game since 1976 when Indiana beat Michigan.

And after North Carolina drew within three points, 36-33, Brown was lost by every Tar Heel defender for a layup with 56.5 seconds left in the first half.

“We felt good about ourselves,” said Maurice Ager, who led Michigan State with 24 points. “We were in the lead and we hadn’t shot great.”

But the Spartans shot even worse in the second half, hitting only 10 of 34 (29.4%), nowhere near good enough to withstand the rejuvenated Tar Heels.

“In the first half,” Michigan State Coach Tom Izzo said, “I thought we executed our game plan about as well as any half this year. In the second half, we just didn’t have enough weapons.”

The Spartans were also hampered because senior forward Alan Anderson, their second-leading scorer, was slowed by an aching knee. Anderson took only four shots and did not score a single point.

“With Alan struggling,” Izzo said, “to be honest, we just fell apart a little bit.”

After the Tar Heels built the 67-52 lead, Michigan State never got closer than 11 points. Four Tar Heels scored in double figures, including Jawad Williams, who had 20 after scoring only eight in two games combined last weekend in the Syracuse Regional semifinals and finals.

Roy Williams is in his 17th season as a head coach. This is his fifth Final Four appearance and third time in the national championship game. The first two title shots came when Williams was at Kansas and the second came two years ago in what would be his final game as the Jayhawks’ coach.

“We want this for coach,” May said. “But we want this for ourselves just as much. We just have to play Carolina basketball.”

Coach Williams would add, play Carolina basketball for 40 minutes.