MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — The North Carolina Tar Heels now are a win away from getting back to a national championship game they narrowly lost a year ago.
And this time, they made the last shot.
Luke Maye hit a jumper with 0.3 seconds left and top-seeded North Carolina held off Kentucky 75-73 to earn the Tar Heels’ second straight trip to the Final Four and 20th all-time in Sunday’s showdown of college basketball’s elite in the South Regional.
The Tar Heels (31-7) will play Midwest champ Oregon on Saturday in Glendale, Arizona, in the national semifinal.
“We get to keep playing,” North Carolina coach Roy Williams said.
North Carolina took control with 12 straight points over the final 5 minutes, a run similar to what it used a week ago to beat Arkansas. The Tar Heels finished this game with a 16-9 run. Kentucky’s freshmen De’Aaron Fox and Malik Monk hit three quick 3s, the last two by Monk. Monk’s second shot with 7.2 seconds left and defenders in his face tied it up at 73.
Theo Pinson brought the ball down and passed back to Maye. The sophomore from Huntersville, North Carolina, knocked it down for the win with his feet on the 3-point line.
“I’m the guy that wanted him to come as a walk-on, so how dumb am I?” Williams said. “He (made) some big-time plays today, big-time plays two days ago.”
Maye finished with 17 points off the bench for North Carolina. Justin Jackson scored 19 points, and Joel Berry II added 11.
The Wildcats had one last chance, but Derek Willis’ inbounds pass went out of bounds on the far end.
Kentucky (32-6) will miss out on the Final Four for the second straight year. Willis and sophomore Isaac Humphries left the court with towels over their heads, and Fox was the last to leave.
The Wildcats had hoped their talented freshmen would carry them. Bam Adebayo and Fox each had 13 points, and Monk, the Southeastern Conference player of the year, finished with 12.
Never before had the NCAA Tournament pitted powerhouse programs that have so dominated March. This South final featured Kentucky with the most tournament wins all-time with 124 and North Carolina just behind with 120.
But this was just the fourth time these blue bloods have met in a regional final. The result was much the same as the others with North Carolina now 3-1 against Kentucky as the Tar Heels avenged a 103-100 loss on Dec. 17 in Las Vegas.
Kentucky led for only 3:57 in a game North Carolina had a big edge on the boards (44-34) and inside where the Tar Heels outscored the Wildcats 34-26.
Officials didn’t help the flow of this game calling fouls left and right, though Kentucky took the brunt with its star trio of freshmen all picking up two fouls each in the half. Fox played only 8 minutes of the first half after picking up his second foul with 12:23 left. Adebayo easily was the most frustrated as he missed all five shots in the half with Kennedy Meeks swatting away one of his attempted dunks.
North Carolina led by as much as nine a couple times before both teams went into shooting slumps. The Tar Heels led 38-33 at halftime.
South Carolina 77, Florida 70
NEW YORK (AP) — South Carolina added a missing piece to its rich basketball history.
The school of Frank McGuire, Kevin Joyce, Brian Winters, Mike Dunleavy and Alex English is going to the Final Four for the first time.
Add the names Sindarius Thornwell and Frank Martin to the top of the list.
Thornwell’s 26 points and the Gamecocks’ swarming zone defense meant a 77-70 victory over Florida on Sunday and a berth in the Final Four.
Martin, he of the booming voice and terrifying faces, led the seventh-seeded Gamecocks to the biggest victory in school history and now they will face Gonzaga, the No. 1 seed from the West Regional, in the Final Four on Saturday at Glendale, Arizona.
“Anyone that’s in sports dreams of moments like this,” said Martin, who was doused with water and dancing as soon as he entered the locker room. “It’s not something that you start dreaming it the year you win 25 games. You dream it every single day.”
The game was as close as expected until the final minute. There were 14 lead changes and 10 ties. The last lead change came on two free throws by Thornwell with 2:24 left that made it 65-63. Fourth-seeded Florida managed just three field goals over the final 3:55.
Thornwell, the regional MVP, followed the deciding free throws with a nice assist to Maik Kotsar for a 4-point lead. It seemed Thornwell, who scored eight straight points for the Gamecocks, was always where he needed to be including making a steal with 40 seconds left that turned into a 73-68 lead.
“Plays needed to be made down the stretch and I stepped up and made plays,” Thornwell said.
Teammate Duane Notice knew Thornwell would come through.
“He’s capable of doing anything on both sides of the basketball. So it doesn’t surprise me,” he said. “His senior leadership just kicked in. He don’t want us to lose. He don’t want our season to end.”
“Thornwell was just being Thornwell,” Florida coach Mike White said of the SEC player of the year. “He’s one of the best players in the country.”
PJ Dozier added 17 points for the Gamecocks, Chris Silva had 13 and Kotsar 12.
Justin Leon had 18 points for the Gators who managed a 40-33 halftime lead on 7-for-12 shooting from 3-point range. But that was it. Florida was 0 for 14 from beyond the arc in the second half, a lot like the 0-for-17 effort the Gators had in their first meeting with South Carolina this season.
“We still got our open looks, but they just, I guess they just went farther than what they were in the first half,” Leon said.
South Carolina, which forced Florida into 16 turnovers, finished 23 for 31 from the free throw line, including a 9-for-10 effort from Thornwell.
It was the third straight game the Gamecocks were trailing at the half and went on to win.
“We felt like we was doing the right things. We felt like everything was going good for us, it was just the ball wasn’t falling in, and we just needed a couple more stops,” Thornwell said. “So going into halftime we always just buckled in and locked in on what we needed to do to win and took it one possession at a time.”
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