GLENDALE, Ariz. — With about eight minutes remaining in the national championship game, LeBron James tweeted his displeasure with the way the game was being officiated.
LeBron’s take: “Man I can’t watch this anymore man! I would like to see the kids decide who wins the game! I mean Bruh!! Smh.”
He was not the only one smacking his head.
Forty-four fouls in a game and 27 in the second half interrupted the flow of North Carolina’s 71-65 victory as much anything either defense — and both were good — might have made a few reach for the remote. The whistles, mostly on plays inside, took some of the key players out of the game for extended periods.
Most notable, as the way the game took shape, was Gonzaga freshman 7-footer Zach Collins. He had 8 points and 4 rebounds but played only 14 minutes, six in the second half, on a night Gonzaga could have used him for another 10. His loss took the Bulldogs out of some of their normal lineup patterns.
Collins said time and again that the officiating did not cost him fouls or Gonzaga the game, but he did admit to some frustration on the foul that seemed the most unwarranted. Collins was being fronted by Isaiah Hicks and was attempting to hold his ground and create some space when he was called for using his forearm to hold off Hicks.
Ticky-tack, maybe?
But as tight as the game was being called, perhaps it should have been expected.
“Sometimes you feel like you don’t know how to play basketball when that stuff happens,” Collins said. “You learn how to do one thing your whole life and they call you for a foul. That’s not taking a shot at the refs. That’s me not realizing the situation in the game. The refs did a great job. Every foul I had, I obviously didn’t so something right, so I have to watch the film and get better.”
Collins had that reply just about every time he was asked about the officials, a composed response for a player who probably found the whole thing hard to digest.
Losing Collins was difficult for the Bulldogs, whose first trip to the national championship game was the culmination of coach Mark Few’s ability to build a program and certainly not vindication. Gonzaga passed that stage long ago. It has made 19 consecutive NCAA tournaments and has established itself as yearly national contender.
North Carolina, which won its sixth national championship, was able to take the Bulldogs out of some of their offensive sets with their aggressive defense, and the Bulldogs committed 14 turnovers, about their season average. Their foul trouble — big men Przemek Karnowski and Johnathan Williams finished with four fouls, as did North Carolina big men Kennedy Meeks and Hicks— threw their substitution pattern out of whack.
The Tar Heels’ size also seemed to trouble 7-foot senior Karnowski, who had 9 points and 9 rebounds but was only 1 of 9 from the floor in his final college game. Bumping against the 260-pound Meeks, Kanowski got the short shots on either side of the rim he usually gets, but they did not fall.
Nigel Williams-Goss, who had 15 points on 5-of-17 shooting, was feeling the effects of a right ankle sprain that he suffered in the semifinal victory over South Carolina — although it was not obvious until the final 90 seconds, when he got tangled up inside. Williams-Goss practiced sparingly Sunday because of the injury, and Gonzaga was forced to take a timeout when he came up limping with the Tar Heels holding a 66-65 lead with 1:25 remaining.
Williams-Goss took a 17-footer that came up just short on a play drawn up in that timeout, and Hicks made a pumping one-handed 6-footer for a 68-65 lead with 26 seconds left. Williams-Goss took the ball into the lane on the next possession but had a 10-footer blocked by Meeks, and that led to a runout dunk for Justin Jackson that clinched the victory.
As tears of disappointment flowed in the locker room, Few told his players that he was proud of their effort, that he was sad that this group would be breaking up and that they were 90 seconds from a national championship.
“We did a lot of things that people didn’t expect us to do this year,” Williams-Goss said. “We put in the work. And we were right there, good enough to win a national championship. So it just kind of left the door open for the next group of Zags to come in and do something that we were not able to do.
“It stings a lot right now, but you can always get better. I think all of us sitting up here understand that. I don’t think any of us think we played our absolute best game. And that hurts. But it doesn’t break you. It doesn’t kill you. You just gotta get better for next time.”
Once thing is clear as the eastern Washington sky — there will be a next time.
