NCAA Tournament Recap
(Arizona-North Carolina)
Posted: March 29, 1997
at 10:26 p.m. EST
Miles Simon and Mike Bibby combined for 44 points as Arizona
advanced to its first-ever NCAA Tournament championship game
with a 66-58 victory over North Carolina in the first semifinal
game at the RCA Dome in Indianapolis.
Simon scored 15 of his 24 points in the first half while Bibby
netted 17 of his 20 in the second as Arizona (24-9) used a 12-4
run midway through the second half to break open a close game.
Champions of the Southeast Region, the Wildcats will play
Kentucky for the championship on Monday night. Arizona knocked
off a top seed for the second time in the tournament and erased
the bitter memory of semifinal setbacks to Oklahoma in 1988 and
Arkansas in 1994.
"I'm thrilled, as any coach would be, to have this opportunity,"
said Arizona coach Lute Olson. "But I'm even more thrilled
given the group of guys that we have, because they're fighters,
they're competitors and they have been all year long."
Vince Carter scored 21 points -- 16 in the first half -- and
Antawn Jamison added 16 for North Carolina (28-7), which had its
16-game winning streak snapped. The Tar Heels were in their
13th Final Four and 11th under coach Dean Smith, who became the
all-time winningest Division I coach in the second round of the
Tournament.
"We ran into an Arizona team that also played very hard and did
an excellent job in the interior defense," said Smith. "I
thought we were great defensively. I don't think they got many
open looks."
The teams put on a woeful shooting display at the start of the
second half as Arizona could barely build upon its 34-31
halftime lead. The Tar Heels were scoreless for just over four
minutes in the second half until Jamison made a 12-footer from
the right side to pull within 36-33.
That triggered an offensive surge as Simon had a bucket before
Carter and Bibby traded three-pointers. Jamison added two free
throws to make it 41-38 with 14:36 remaining.
Arizona scored the next six points to open a 47-38 lead after a
putback by freshman Eugene Edgerson with 11:18 to play. But the
Tar Heels started gaining momentum as Ed Cota blocked a shot and
was fouled as he scored on a runner in the lane. After a miss
by Simon, Jamison completed an alley-oop from Cota to pull North
Carolina within 47-42 at the 9:50 mark.
But as quickly as the momentum built, it ebbed as both teams
missed shot after shot after shot, six straight shots in all --
three by each school. The drought finally ended when Simon
buried a three-pointer from the left side to make it 50-42 with
7:43 to play.
North Carolina turned the ball over and Simon missed a shot, but
the Wildcats got the offensive rebound and Bibby drilled a
three-pointer from the right wing to push the lead to 11.
Zwikker had two baskets around a 12-footer by Simon to draw the
Tar Heels within nine, but Bibby, a freshman, put the game out
of reach with consecutive three-pointers in a 58-second span to
give Arizona a 61-46 bulge with 4:38 to play.
"I guess I was nervous for a little bit," said Bibby, who did
not score until there was 1:24 left in the first half. "But
once we got in the flow of the game, I just knew if I kept on
shooting, from all the practice I was doing, I knew it would
fall in sometime if I kept shooting it."
The Tar Heels scored the next seven points and pulled within
61-53 on a layup by Jamison with 2:43 to play. But Bibby
knocked down a three-pointer from the right wing 18 seconds
later to make it an 11-point game.
Simon missed the front ends of back-to-back 1-and-1s around a
missed free throw by Michael Dickerson, but North Carolina could
not get close, going 1-for-7 from the field in a span of 67
seconds.
"When most people think about Arizona, they think about perimeter
and guys who can really shoot," said Jamison, who was 7-of-17
from the floor. "They definitely have that, but their inside
game really helped their team out a whole lot. They did a
terrific job, and that's probably why they're here today."
As cold as North Carolina was in the first half, it almost blew
the Wildcats back to Arizona in the opening 4:26 of the contest.
Bennett Davison made two free throws to give Arizona a 4-3 lead
one minute in, but the Tar Heels reeled off 12 straight points,
keyed by six from Jamison. Carter capped the run with an
alley-oop from Cota to open a 15-4 lead with 15:34 left. North
Carolina hit seven of its first 11 shots.
"Well, I thought our guys did a real good job of getting
Carolina overconfident in that first eight or 10 minutes," joked
Olson. "But I think that was indicative of the kind of heart
and hustle that these guys have and have shown all year long."
But Simon refused to let the Wildcats get run out, hitting a
pair of three-pointers in a 9-3 run that lifted Arizona within
19-17 with 9:41 to go.
"You know, they were killing us with layups and lobs at the
beginning of the game," said Simon. "And they got out to a
quick start. We were sending one wing to the board, and both
big men, and Carter and Jamison, they run the floor so well.
Once we made them set up in the halfcourt, our defense was very
stingy."
The Tar Heels opened a 31-26 lead after a 12-footer by Serge
Zwikker capped a 7-0 run with four minutes left, but Arizona
scored the final eight points and Simon's three-point play with
55 seconds left made it 34-31.
Arizona led at halftime, despite shooting 34.4 percent from the
field (11-of-32) in the first 20 minutes. For the game, the
Wildcats shot just 33 percent (22-of-66) from the field, but
made 11-of-29 three-point shots (37.9 percent). Bramlett had 10
rebounds as Arizona held the Tar Heels to 11 second-chance
points.
The Tar Heels shot just 31.1 percent (23-of-74) from the floor,
including a woeful 4-of-21 from three-point range. Shammond
Williams made his first shot, a three-pointer from the top of
the key, but missed his final 12 shots. The starting frontcourt
of Jamison, Zwikker and Ademola Okulaja shot a combined
12-of-37.
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