Upstart Arizona trips up Tar Heels
INDIANAPOLIS (Scripps Howard News Service) -- North Carolina's Shammond Williams sat in a quiet locker room and was asked which Arizona player guarded him in Saturday's NCAA national semifinal game.
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| Arizona freshman Mike Bibby hit six of
11 shots in the final 20 minutes, including five of nine 3-pointers.
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Added Carolina forward Antawn Jamison, "I'd beat one of them, and they'd send someone else,"
It certainly did seem that Wildcats defenders were everywhere, as Arizona advanced to its first national title game in school history with a 66-58 victory over the favored Tar Heels at the RCA Dome. The Wildcats (24-9) will play defending national champion Kentucky for the title Monday night.
While Carolina found little room to move on offense, Arizona guard Mike Bibby rarely found a defender in his vicinity as he drove a dagger in the Heels' hopes with six 3-pointers.
"I'm going to shoot if I'm open," Bibby said. "They left me open, and I shot it."
And he was open throughout the second half.
Bibby scored 17 of his 20 points in the final 20 minutes. His four 3-pointers in a five- minute stretch enabled Arizona to take a 64-53 lead with 2:24 left and weather a late Carolina charge.
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Bibby's backcourt mate, Miles Simon, kept the 'Cats in it early when Carolina threatened to make it a blowout by racing to a 17-4 lead. Simon finished with a game-high 24 points, including 15 in the first half.
Arizona won by doing the same thing to North Carolina it did to top-ranked Kansas in its Sweet 16 upset. The Wildcats wiped out Carolina's inside game, then had the quickness to defend the Heels' perimeter shooting.
Arizona's inside quickness resulted in eight blocked shots -- four by A.J. Bramlett. All seemed to be within five feet of the hoop.
"A very, very big key was the way our interior players played against theirs," Olson said.
Then the Wildcats took away Carolina's outside threat. Williams, who set a single- season record for 3-pointers, made the first trey he took 41 seconds into the game, but that was his last.
He missed his next seven triples, and finished 1-for-13 from the field. Williams said the shots didn't fall, but grudgingly admitted Arizona had something to do with that.
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| In a battle of freshmen point guards, Arizona's
Mike Bibby harrasses UNC's Ed Cota.
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he Wildcats held Carolina to 31 percent shooting, its poorest game of the season. The 58 points? One more than a season-low.
"They're definitely a quicker team than we normally play," center Serge Zwikker said.
Offensively, Arizona's guards were too much for Carolina.
Simon, who wanted to go to Carolina but learned he wouldn't when Smith wrote him a letter saying he wouldn't recruit him, hit nine of his 19 shots.
Bibby's six 3-pointers tied the third highest total in Final Four history.
"My mentality is to shoot," Bibby said. "I'm not worried what time the game is. I'm going to shoot."
He showed that on one late possession. North Carolina had cut a 15-point lead to eight, and there was plenty of time on the shot clock when Bibby launched a long bomb from the wing. It swished, and Arizona led by 11 with 2:20 left.
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Vince Carter scored 21 points -- 16 in the first half -- and Jamison added 16 for North Carolina (28-7), which had its 16-game winning streak snapped. The Tar Heels were in their 13th Final Four and 11th under coach Dean Smith.
"We ran into an Arizona team that also played very hard and did an excellent job in the interior defense," Smith said. "I thought we were great defensively. I don't think they got many open looks."
Simon and Bibby scored 17 of Arizona's last 21 points. Fifteen of those points came on 3-pointers. Their play and the defensive effort sent the Wildcats where few expected they would go: to the championship game.
"I told the team," Olson said, "as long as we've gone this far we may as well get it done on Monday night."