North Carolina Tar Heels: It’s Villa’super’nova
The North Carolina Tar Heels face the hot Villanova Wildcats to determine the national champion of men’s basketball.
The North Carolina Tar Heels play the Villanova Wildcats in the National Title game later today. While the Tar Heels beat Syracuse on Saturday, Villanova simply smacked down Oklahoma in the other semifinal game. They won by a forty-four point margin and held Buddy Hield to just nine points on the game.
That means more care has to be taken in presenting this matchup. Picking Isaiah Hicks as my x-factor against Syracuse did not really pan out. I would be tempted to judge this Villanova team as I have previous Villanova teams and say they play four guards and are not very big inside. The temptation would be to say this is another Notre Dame, Indiana, Syracuse, even Providence type matchup.
Yet let’s just look at the facts. The first one notices about Villanova’s roster is that they have eight guys who played in every game this year with Daniel Ochefu playing in thirty six. That is a nine man rotation and is already deeper than Syracuse was. With the possible exception of Indiana, the Tar Heels have not seen another roster with as much depth since Virginia.
The next thing to look at is the scoring. All of the starters outside of Ochefu shoot better than 35% from the three point arc. That includes power forward Kris Jenkins, who plays a little outside too. If you are getting Ben Bentil or Bonzie Colson flashbacks, that is about right just with a different body. Jenkins is a 240 lb tank. Part of the storyline will be how well Brice Johnson or Hicks can cover him while he moves around the forecourt.
The three guards are Josh Hart, Ryan Arcidiacono, and Jalen Brunson. Hart is the leading scorer among the three. The benefit for the Heels is that none of three had the length of the Syracuse guards. Marcus Paige, Nate Britt, and Joel Berry will find more natural covers instead of odd matches like that had with Michael Gbinije.
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They lose a little bit when they go the bench with Mikal Bridges and Phil Booth on the wing but the idea stays the same. Both were productive against Oklahoma. Behind Ochefu is only Darryl Reynolds at 6’7”. That might make Kennedy Meeks the most important player on the offense for the Tar Heels. Putting Ochefu in foul trouble and forcing Villanova to play Reynolds would surrender the paint area to the Tar Heels.
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The biggest problem for the Tar Heels would be a steady rain of three point baskets. Trevor Cooney got most of his twenty-two that way to keep Syracuse in the game. Villanova has about three Cooneys if they all were to get hot together. Playing well off screens will be big.
The other issue will be to keep the smaller Wildcats off of the rebounds. The Tar Heels have been surprised sometimes by smaller teams (Butler last year) in rebounding intensity. They have shown more hustle lately, but one of Oklahoma’s downfalls was getting beat on the boards by Jenkins.
Finally, the Tar Heels will need a shot or two of their own. While getting the ball to Johnson and Meeks will be the early idea, eventually a Paige three will come in handy to hold back or catch up with Wildcat momentum. Of course all of this will get decided in about eight hours.