Well? What do I know?

The game played out a little differently than I thought. Interesting stuff throughout. 1st half, we let things slip - a few calls didn't go our way, and we never solved the 2-3. Our shots weren't falling, and I think that we looked frustrated out there. And just as importantly, they hit some big 3's, and McCants played well. I liked what Roy Williams was doing - as soon as they got up by 5 or 6, they went into 2-3. Sort of like saying, we know that we can't hang in man on you, so if we get up, we're slowing the game down. He gets props for that first half. So, we walk into the locker rooms down a baker's dozen.

2nd half comes in - we start to look good on offense, as shots start falling. But they're hitting big shots, too. But, we had a little run to cut it to 12, and then you could see that North Carolina was going to let us back into the game. As soon as Deron hits a jumper, they fly down court and have one of their players (Jawad Williams) heave a quick 3 from the baseline. We get the ball and get a layup out of it. Then Felton comes flying down the court and takes a tough 17 foot pull-up. We get the board, and get a 3 out of it. We're only down 7, and we've got a ballgame. The most important thing that didn't happen for UNC was that they never went back into 2-3. They tried to run this 1-3-1 on us, that didn't work so well, but never back into 2-3, which we never solved. And more importantly, would have slowed us down on offense.

And really, we played well down the stretch. It went back and forth, with their lead waxing and waning from 7 down to 0. But we could never take the lead. The moment that defined the game was when it was tied 70-70 with a little over 2:00 left in the game. We had just gotten a stop on defense, and we were looking good. All year, we had been a tough team, and after the Arizona game, everyone was figuring, "here we go again." North Carolina was looking for a reason to fold. They had been giving up leads all half, but had been just good enough to get the leads back. It had to end some time.

But it didn't.

Deron got a great look for a 3, online, but no good. The ball took a high bounce over the backboard, and then Marvin Williams makes this awesome followup off of a missed shot on the other end. 72-20. You could say that we had our chances after that, but it didn't really feel that way there.

When it was tied at 70, looking around the stands, there was feeling of worry coming from the blue section. And all of the students in orange were ready to explode. As soon as we saw that Deron was going to get a clean look, we fell silent, held our breaths, and got into that shallow knee bend, ready to jump up and throw our arms in the air. The areana would have erupted, and it would have been over. UNC was looking for a reason to fold, but we didn't quite give it to them.

This was our guy. Deron won the Arizona game for us. Even in an off shooting night, Deron scored the first and last baskets for us against Louisville in the semifinals. And Deron made the first bucket for us tonight with that beautiful pull-up 14 footer. So Deron had to have the last jumper ready, didn't he? Deron's been the General for our team all year. Deron was the one with ice water running through his veins. Deron was going to win it again for us. Online, but short, I believe. You can't fault him at all. In fact, all you can do is praise how much he has improved from his freshman year, and how much of a leader he's become. He was our guy. He just missed the shot.

I thought that we may have made our furious comeback a little bit too early. But you can't really choose when you go on a run. We cut the lead from 13 (as much as 15, really) down to 2 with just under 13 minutes left to go. It's hard to keep up your intensity for the rest of the game. You can go on adrenaline and emotion for 5 or 6 minutes, but it's hard to do it for 13. But we almost did. Until the last errant pass (and nice anticipation from Raymond Felton) from Luther to Dee, we had played well - our first turnover of the 2nd half.

But, really, if you look at the game, we just had a lot of tough situations in the 1st half. 11 of 35 from the field. We had a couple of 3's just rim out. Deron missed 2 free throws. We didn't get a whole lot of calls from the refs. And we never figured out the 2-3. That was where we had to get desperate. I think that we just ran out of jumpers at the end.

Almost.

I sort of know what it feels like to be a Cubs fan now. Wait til' next year.

Damn.

-Chairman