NCAA Tournament - The Championship Game
by Ian James
NCAA Tournament: Championship Game
Does North Carolina Tar Heels.
In the Final Four the Spartans basically played a home game in front of a raucous crowd of 70,000-plus at Ford Field in Detroit. With a majority of the crowd adored in Spartan green and white Michigan State pulled off a huge 82-73 upset of No. 1 seed Connecticut as a 4.5-point favorite on the college basketball odds. Kalin Lucas led the Spartans with 21 points and five assists on 7-of-15 shooting, while Raymar Morgan added 18 points and nine rebounds.
The Tar Heels continued to cruise through the Final Four with an 83-69 win over Villanova as a 7-point favorite. Ty Lawson roasted the Wildcats with 22 points, 7 rebounds and 8 assists, while Wayne Ellington delivered 20 points and nine rebounds. Tyler Hansbrough also chipped in with a double-double with 18 points and 11 rebounds. On defense the Tar Heels stymied the Wildcats, holding them to 32 percent shooting.
Oddly enough Monday’s championship game will be the second time this season that the Spartans and the Tar Heels will face off at Ford Field. Back in December the Tar Heels and Spartans got a look at what they hoped to be seeing again in the Final Four, but after the game it was probably a night Michigan State would like to forget. North Carolina was a 10-point favorite and steamrolled Michigan State in a 98-63 win. Five Tar Heels scored in double-figures, led by Hansbrough with 25 points and 11 rebounds. Lawson chipped in with 17 points and eight assists and Ellington also dropped in 17 points. The Spartans got 21 points from Morgan and 16 points from Chris Allen, but that was basically it. Lucas shot only 2-of-10 for six points, and as a team Michigan State shot only 35 percent from the floor and 61 percent from the line. Another standout stat for the Spartans was the 21 turnovers they committed.
There is one possible glimmer of hope from the December rout for the Spartans; Michigan State played without 6-10 center Goran Suton, who was sidelined by a knee injury. Suton has been a big part of Michigan State’s March Madness run and could be a real difference-maker in dealing with Hansbrough in Monday’s final.
The Tar Heels head into the final as a 7.5-point favorite, which according to recent history bodes well for North Carolina to add a fifth championship banner at Chapel Hill. In last year’s final, Kansas knocked off Memphis 75-68 as a 2-point favorite. In the previous year the Florida Gators won their second straight title and covered the spread in an 84-75 win over Ohio State as a 4.5-point chalk. The last favorite to go home empty-handed was the UCLA Bruins in 2006, as they were crushed 73-57 by the Gators as a 1-point favorite.
Over the past 10 years only two favorites have failed to win a national title. One, as mentioned, was UCLA in ’06 and the other was Kansas, who was shocked by Syracuse as a 5.5-point favorite in 2003. Overall in the last 10 years the favorite in the final is 8-2 straight-up and 7-3 ATS. If the Tar Heels follow that trend they’ll take home their first title since 2005. If the Spartans can pull off another upset special it will be their first title since 2000.
