DETROIT // North Carolina's cast of future NBA players overwhelmed Michigan State 89-72 in the final of the NCAA Tournament, giving the Tar Heels their fifth national championship and first since 2005.
North Carolina raced to a 34-11 lead in the first 10 minutes, silencing many of the 73,000 in Ford Field that had been pleading for the home-state Spartans to make a run.
"We got off to a start where we looked either a little bit shell-shocked or a little bit worn down," conceded the Spartans coach Tom Izzo. "You can't do that against a good team."
Wayne Ellington, the tournament's Most Outstanding Player, had 17 of his 19 points by half-time when the Tar Heels held a commanding 55-34 lead and essentially won the game.
"We came out strong," said the Tar Heels forward Tyler Hansbrough. "We knew there was going to be a big crowd there for them and we wanted to take them out of it early."
Michigan State, who never cut the lead below 13 after half-time, saw their Bosnian-born centre Goran Suton score 17 points.
The decision by North Carolina's Ellington, Hansbrough, Ty Lawson and Danny Green not to turn professional after last year's bitterly disappointing semi-final loss to Kansas paid off.
Lawson recorded a team-best 21 points and a championship-game record eight steals.
"I'm so proud of this team," said the Tar Heels coach Roy Williams. "People anointed us before the year that you were going to go undefeated, which I thought was silly at the time.
"Then we lost two games and everybody jumped off the ship."
The victory put an exclamation point on a stunning tournament streak by the Tar Heels, who won each of their six games by a double-digit margin.
"Every time we made a decent run, [or] our crowd got into it, they gave the ball to Lawson or Hansbrough and they made a great play," said the Spartans guard Travis Walton.
"That's why they won the national championship, because they are a great team and they can stop your runs."
Michigan State's East Lansing campus is just 145km from Detroit and the Spartans were trying to become the first school since University of California, Los Angeles in 1975 to win the title in their home state.
The Spartans had carried the dreams of an economically ravaged city desperately searching for a ray of sunshine but were unable to finish their impressive tournament run.
"As I walked off the floor, I told Hansbrough that it was really nice to see a bunch of guys that stayed in school and put winning above everything else," said Izzo.
"Even though we did have a cause they had a cause, too, and I was pretty impressed by that."
* Reuters
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Brief scores:
Toss: Sindhis, elected to field first
Kerala Knights 103-7 (10 ov)
Parnell 59 not out; Tambe 5-15
Sindhis 104-1 (7.4 ov)
Watson 50 not out, Devcich 49
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UK-EU trade at a glance
EU fishing vessels guaranteed access to UK waters for 12 years
Co-operation on security initiatives and procurement of defence products
Youth experience scheme to work, study or volunteer in UK and EU countries
Smoother border management with use of e-gates
Cutting red tape on import and export of food
Some of Darwish's last words
"They see their tomorrows slipping out of their reach. And though it seems to them that everything outside this reality is heaven, yet they do not want to go to that heaven. They stay, because they are afflicted with hope." - Mahmoud Darwish, to attendees of the Palestine Festival of Literature, 2008
His life in brief: Born in a village near Galilee, he lived in exile for most of his life and started writing poetry after high school. He was arrested several times by Israel for what were deemed to be inciteful poems. Most of his work focused on the love and yearning for his homeland, and he was regarded the Palestinian poet of resistance. Over the course of his life, he published more than 30 poetry collections and books of prose, with his work translated into more than 20 languages. Many of his poems were set to music by Arab composers, most significantly Marcel Khalife. Darwish died on August 9, 2008 after undergoing heart surgery in the United States. He was later buried in Ramallah where a shrine was erected in his honour.
More from Rashmee Roshan Lall
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
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Day 5, Abu Dhabi Test: At a glance
Moment of the day When Dilruwan Perera dismissed Yasir Shah to end Pakistan’s limp resistance, the Sri Lankans charged around the field with the fevered delirium of a side not used to winning. Trouble was, they had not. The delivery was deemed a no ball. Sri Lanka had a nervy wait, but it was merely a stay of execution for the beleaguered hosts.
Stat of the day – 5 Pakistan have lost all 10 wickets on the fifth day of a Test five times since the start of 2016. It is an alarming departure for a side who had apparently erased regular collapses from their resume. “The only thing I can say, it’s not a mitigating excuse at all, but that’s a young batting line up, obviously trying to find their way,” said Mickey Arthur, Pakistan’s coach.
The verdict Test matches in the UAE are known for speeding up on the last two days, but this was extreme. The first two innings of this Test took 11 sessions to complete. The remaining two were done in less than four. The nature of Pakistan’s capitulation at the end showed just how difficult the transition is going to be in the post Misbah-ul-Haq era.
