I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to do a writeup about the National Championship, but with that game late on Monday night followed by a lot of work (real work) and taxes … well here we are.
First off, congratulations to the University of North Carolina. It’s gotta feel great to be a Tar Heel right now.
Like any national championship, this game had a lot of meanings on several different levels. I’ll walk through a few of them in separate sections here, starting with a review of the game itself.

The Game
All year, people looked around the country and declared that the two best teams were Illinois and North Carolina. The Illini proved their worth early and, as well as any team in recent memory, maintained a high level of play for the entire season. They nearly went wire-to-wire as #1 and clearly deserved it. North Carolina on the other hand, was a bit more uneven, but their highs appeared to be higher than any other team’s. There were times when they looked to be the best team in the land and other other times they appeared headed for an embarrassing early exit.
When the two top dogs finally and improbably met for the NCAA title, it was a game worthy of the hype. Recent title games have been poorly played at times and usually featured a mismatch, but this one was well-played from start to finish. Sure, Illinois shot poorly in the first half, but that was due in large part to Carolina’s outstanding defense.
Before the game, I predicted that the winner would top 85 points and that if Carolina were to win, it would take a great night from Jawad Williams (or possibly Melvin Scott). I was wrong on both counts, but both for the same reason. The key for Carolina was not the excellent play from a role player, but their excellent team defense. Illinois has a great halfcourt offense and the Tar Heels are known to be mediocre in defending for the whole 35 seconds, but all night the Illini had to try and try and try to find good looks. They usually had to go deep into the shot clock and often a good look never materialized. That time Illinois had to use kept the total score lower than I expected.
In particular, Carolina’s zone defense was effective against the sharpshooting boys from Champaign. Typically, Illinois is exactly the wrong kind of team to zone – a team filled with good three-point shooters and one that passes around the exterior as well as any team you’ll ever see. On Monday night though, the zone worked better for the Heels than their more-typical man-to-man. Against the man D, Illinois’ screens freed their shooters. Those same screens are much less effective against a zone and the Illini seemed less prepared to attack those sets.
Carolina’s effective zone was just one aspect of what I thought was a masterful coaching job by Roy Williams. After the semifinal win over Michigan State, I criticized his liberal substitutions in the first half. He kept his stars – Sean May, Raymond Felton and Rashad McCants – on the bench for way too long. On Monday night, Felton picked up his second foul early in the first half. Foul trouble for Felton was the one doomsday scenario for this team, but Williams found a way to keep Felton in the game using a mix of the zone defense and clever substitutions. He managed to give Felton and May rests throughout the first half without compromising their lead. Those rests enabled both to play nearly all of the second half when things got tighter. May and McCants each played three minutes more in the finals than against the Spartans on Saturday, while Felton played the same amount despite his foul trouble.
I also bagged on Melvin Scott for his horrendous play on Saturday. On Monday night, he still failed to do much positive, but he didn’t hurt the team nearly as much. I don’t remember ever seeing his man take wide-open jumpers like I saw all night the game before. Ole Roy played Scott about three minutes less on Monday night.
All-in-all, it was a great effort by the Heels – the coaches and the players. For the Illini, it probably wasn’t their best game, but they didn’t really play that poorly. They were just beaten by a better team who played better on that night.
The Program
We all remember just how far the Carolina program had fallen just a few years ago. Several years of poor recruiting choices left them with a team chock full of high school all-Americans (Kris Lang, Jason Capel, Jawad Williams) but with precious few decent college players. They went 8-20, a record Clemson would be embarrassed with and ended nearly all of their impressive streaks.
As shockingly bad as that year was, it was not totally unforeseen. I never expected they would be so bad, but I saw the foundation crumbling way back in Dean Smith’s final seasons. The teams often still did well, but they weren’t recruiting the kind of players they had in the past. This continued through the Bill Guthridge years even though they somehow managed two Final Fours in his three years. Like a great mountain range, Carolina didn’t collapse overnight, they slowly crumbled and eroded. Everyone, including me, thought that Matt Doherty would fix things, but he somehow managed to push all of the wrong buttons and made things worse.
But enough of the bad. Roy Williams came back to rebuild the Empire, and he did it. UNC is back. Sure, they may slip a bit next year if all of their studs leave early, but make no mistake – there will be no more 8-20s in Carolina’s near future. They will land one or three McDonald’s All-Americans every year and they will always be a threat to make the Final Four. Duke’s unimpeded run over the ACC in the past half decade or so is officially over.
The Rivalry
Carolina – Duke wasn’t always the preeminent rivalry in the country or even in the ACC. In the early days of the conference, NC State and North Carolina ruled the conference. Over the years, State fell back (and rose back up from time to time) while Carolina always stayed at the top. Duke did well in the 60s, but fell back until Mike Krzyzewski’s system took hold in the mid 80s. It was only then that Duke-Carolina really grew into the monster it is now. Sure, they have always hated each other, but to be a great rivalry, both teams need to be really good.
Well, in recent years, Carolina hasn’t been that good. While Duke was becoming the best program in the nation over the last 15 years, Carolina was falling down. It got so one-sided that some were saying that Duke-Maryland was now the conference’s top rivalry.
Well not now. Not for a long time. Carolina is back (and has retaken the national championship lead – four to three) and the rivalry is better for it.
The Conference
I mentioned this in my last long post, but that title game, Carolina’s third in a row against the Big Ten, would settle the conference battle in the NCAA tournament. With the win, Carolina gave the ACC not just the national championship, but the best overall winning percentage in the tournament and a 3-2 head-to-head record against the Big Ten. I guess they crowed too soon!
After the past two seasons, when Big East teams Syracuse and Connecticut won titles, my Big East friends made it known to me that they felt that proved that they were indeed the best conference. Head-to-head matchups, conference power ratings and over post-season winning percentages didn’t matter – just the national championship. I didn’t think that made much sense then (although in fairness, the Big East had the best postseason record last year along with their title) and I don’t now.
Still … I’d be remiss if I didn’t throw a bit of their logic back in their face. If winning the title makes a conference the best, you have to agree that the ACC is the best yet again. (Of course, the ACC also had the best overall NCAA tournament record and the highest rating in every single conference power ratings.) Oh, and that title neatly bookends the back-to-back titles Duke and Maryland won before the Big East’s mini-streak. That’s three NCAA champions (three different schools, no less) in five seasons.
And now for the final postseason results. By dint of South Carolina’s NIT title (and Vandy’s nice NIT run), the SEC had a stellar NIT record of 7-1. That offset their flat 5-5 in the Big Dance to help them catch the ACC and Big Ten for overall postseason winning percentage of 66.7%.
As I mentioned earlier, the ACC had the best NCAA record and while it tied the Big Ten and SEC in overall percentage, it did so with four more wins overall.
Final 2005 conference postseason results: