GLENDALE, Ariz. — This time, North Carolina found an ending it could live with just fine.
The Tar Heels will want to re-watch the final moments of their 71-65 victory over Gonzaga in the national championship game Monday night after Kennedy Meeks came up with two huge plays to trigger a wild sequence.
Meeks blocked a shot by Nigel Williams-Goss with Gonzaga trailing by only three points, leading to a breakaway dunk by Justin Jackson. Then Meeks came up with a steal with eight seconds left that forced the Bulldogs to foul North Carolina’s Joel Berry II, who made one of two free throws to extend the Tar Heels’ advantage to six points.
It was redemption for the Tar Heels that came with Kris Jenkins, the player who beat them in last season’s national championship game, sitting in their cheering section. The Villanova hero had been taken in by the parents of North Carolina guard Nate Britt, making him a Tar Heels fan for life.
North Carolina (33-7) won its sixth national championship and third under coach Roy Williams, who guided the Tar Heels to titles in 2005 and 2009. Williams nearly won another title last season before Jenkins made a buzzer-beating shot, an ending that Williams said he had not watched and probably never would.
“They wanted redemption,” said Williams, 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.”
Gonzaga’s 19th consecutive trip to the NCAA tournament ended as all the others had before it, with a crushing defeat. But the Bulldogs (37-2) had served notice that they were more than just the scrappy overachievers from the West Coast Conference by making it this far for the first time.
Gonzaga was within one point when Isaiah Hicks dribbled toward the basket before rising for a one-handed leaning jumper with 26 seconds left that gave the Tar Heels a 68-65 lead, a prelude to the wild concluding stretch.
Berry II was named the Most Outstanding Player of the Final Four after he finished with 22 points.
“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 percent but I gave it my all.”
Jackson had 16 for North Carolina, which won despite some epic struggles from beyond the arc, making only four of 27 three-pointers. The Tar Heels probably didn’t mind that both teams entered the bonus with 12:49 left in the game, turning the final minutes largely into a battle of free throws.
Some of the fouls were even warranted, including a flagrant-1 called on Gonzaga forward Przemek Karnowski for smacking Berry II in the face. Berry stepped to the free-throw line … and missed both attempts.
The start of the second half went about as poorly as possible for Gonzaga. Guard Josh Perkins, who had scored 13 points in the first half, committed turnovers on back-to-back possessions and the Bulldogs missed their first five shots, including an airball by Williams-Goss after Jackson had blocked his previous attempt.
The Tar Heels rattled of eight consecutive points to take a 40-35 lead.
Gonzaga’s Jordan Mathews sparked his team’s subsequent 8-0 run with a steal and a three-pointer with a defender in his face, but Bulldogs forward Zach Collins picked up his fourth foul with 15:53 left and had to go to the bench. Meeks suffered the same fate with 9:42 remaining.
Collins re-entered and made a handful of big plays before fouling out with 5:03 left, finishing with nine points and seven rebounds in only 14 minutes.
Gonzaga held a 35-32 halftime lead despite getting little production from Karnowski other than his five rebounds. The 7-foot-1, 300-pound wall of humanity missed all four of his shots, committed three turnovers and picked up two fouls.
The Bulldogs were ahead because they took smarter shots and made more of them than the Tar Heels, who tried the long-distance route to success and made only two of 13 three-pointers in the first half. Jackson was particularly frigid, missing all six of his attempts from beyond the arc.
Gonzaga led by as many as seven points and twice could have stretched its advantage to 10 but missed three-pointers. The Bulldogs limited Meeks to one offensive rebound in the first half, which qualified as a victory considering he had grabbed eight during the Tar Heels’ semifinal victory over Oregon.
That was a big reason Gonzaga held a 25-23 rebounding edge at halftime. Meeks couldn’t do much besides draw the ire of Williams, who slapped the court in disgust after a sideline conversation with his burly senior.
