Carolina looked impressive for the second game in a row last night against Tennessee. They built a 20 point lead in the first half, further rinsing out the bad taste left from their loss to Santa Clara.
It’s too bad that Iowa beat Texas in the other semifinal. I was looking forward to a Tar Heel – Longhorn matchup. There would be plenty of intrigue in that game.
The most obvious storyline would be revenge for the Tar Heels. Texas knocked them out of the NCAA Tournament last year.
Then there’s the pretty strong rivalry Texas and coach Rick Barnes built against Kansas in the Big 12 while Roy Williams was the coach there.
On top of all that is the old, bitter rivalry that Barnes had with Dean Smith when Barnes was at Clemson. He was the the first coach since Krzyzewski to really verbally challenge Dean, and it got ugly at times. Roy Williams was long gone by then, of course, but he always stayed very close to his mentor and surely harbors some resentment towards Barnes. In fact, I believe Ol’ Roy’s son was on those Carolina teams when they had the Clemson run-ins.
Ah well, it’s not happening. Instead, UNC will play Iowa for the title. The only coaching tie there is that Alford was a freshman on the Indiana team that upset UNC and Michael Jordan in ’84. Roy Williams was an assistant on that Carolina team. Pretty weak, I guess, but they say that revenge is a dish best served cold, right?