THE UNIVERSITY OF North Carolina Tar Heels, who fell agonisingly short of the goal last year, beat the Gonzaga Bulldogs 71-65 to claim the coveted US college basketball national championship.
The Tar Heels won their sixth March Madness title at the University of Phoenix Stadium, where center Kennedy Meeks’s block on Nigel Williams-Goss set up a fastbreak dunk by Justin Jackson with 12 seconds to play that sealed North Carolina’s win.
Last year the Tar Heels’ title bid was sunk by a last-second shot by Villanova’s Kris Jenkins in the title game.
“They wanted redemption,” said North Carolina coach Roy Williams, who became the sixth coach to win three or more NCAA championships.
“One of the things we had to be tonight was tough enough. I think this group was tough enough.”
This year’s championship showcase featured a welter of fouls and missed shots by both teams.
But it offered plenty of drama, with the outcome in doubt in the final minute.
Forward Isaiah Hicks’s jump shot with 26 seconds left gave North Carolina a 68-65 lead before Williams-Goss, who had scored eight straight points for Gonzaga, was blocked on the other end.
North Carolina point guard Joel Berry made two free throws with seven seconds remaining to finish with a game-high 22 points.
Berry, who sprained both ankles during the tournament, made all four of North Carolina’s three-pointers and was named Most Outstanding Player of the Final Four.
“My teammates believed in me,” he said. “My teammates said just keep on pushing. I couldn’t do it without them. I wasn’t 100% but I gave it my all.”
Gonzaga, the small-school perennial contender who had made it to the Final Four for the first time in their 19th straight appearance in the national tournament, missed nine consecutive shots in the second half, going more than eight minutes without a basket.
