Unfamiliar faces — and North Carolina — make up a very different Final Four

The potential one-and-done first-round picks were crushed, after Luke Maye’s jumper with 0.3 seconds remaining sent top-seeded North Carolina to the Final Four following the thrilling, 75-73, victory at FedExForum in Memphis, and No. 2 Kentucky to an offseason of regret.

The North Carolina Tar Heels and Kentucky Wildcats went through a series of unreal emotions during their Elite Eight matchup.

The moment will likely be one of the greatest highlights from the national tournament.

The Tar Heels led by six with a minute left, and then Kentucky’s Malik Monk nailed a three to bring the Wildcats within three.

In the end Sunday, experience and size were the difference in why the Tar Heels advanced to the Final Four – not the officiating. While an unreal 3-pointer from Malik Monk tied the game, there were almost 10 seconds remaining for North Carolina to get a shot off, and they did. The Tar Heels looked primed to salt the game away but missed free throws and a 5-second violation gave the Wildcats an opening of which they took full advantage.

“You know, it’s incredible that we were in that game where they practically fouled out my whole team”, Calipari said at the start of his postgame news conference. “So I just shot it and luckily it went in”. Villanova’s Kris Jenkins hit a shot at the buzzer in the title game, only seconds after Tar Heels guard Marcus Paige made a double-clutch 3 to tie it.

Williams said Berry aggravated the right ankle he sprained in the opening weekend of the tournament in practice Saturday.

Williams couldn’t offer a scholarship until Maye’s second season.

Then there’s the trail mix crowd except OR doesn’t really look like they eat trail mix – oh, no – it looks more like they eat nails.

“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. “I feel like we need some security around campus”.

The Tar Heels (31-7) will play Midwest champ OR on Saturday in Glendale, Arizona, in the national semifinal.

Of course Laettner handed Kentucky the same fate 25 years ago when he swished the most iconic shot in the history of college hoops – a game-winner in overtime to earn Duke a berth in the Final Four – while wearing the No. 32.

On Thursday, we sat down with Tar Heels legend Phil Ford and some of his teammates from the 1977 team – that made it all the way to the National Championship.

The most notable of these occurred with Carolina attacking its goal just before the four-minute mark.

Justin Jackson scored 19 for North Carolina (31-7), and Maye had 17, a career high for the second straight game.

Luke Maye, who came into yesterday’s game averaging 5.5 points per game, instantly became a Tar Heel legend by scoring a career-high 17 points-along with the game victor with 0.3 seconds remaining. ‘It was a great feeling’.

This time it was North Carolina playing the kind of tough defense it does not always play, and certainly didn’t play when December’s game turned into a 4×100 relay.

Dylan Ennis added 12 points for the third-seeded Ducks (33-5), who took the lead with 16 minutes left in the first half and never trailed again, giving coach Dana Altman his first trip to the national semifinals. Bam Adebayo and Fox each had 13 points, and Monk finished with 12. “It was 7.2, I think, when they scored and I was just screaming ‘go, go, go.’ And Theo goes down the court and finds Luke, and Luke made a big-time shot”. And you’ve got to beat who’s out there, and let’s go, and don’t worry about it. Kansas ran it to force overtime against Calipari’s Memphis team and won 75-68 in overtime.