Bulldogs and Tar Heels Battle For Title

We started this dance about a month ago. At that time, there were sixty eight teams in the chase. Now here we sit with two teams left standing. one will walk away as the National Champion in Men's Basketball, while the other will just walk out of Phoenix. One team looks for redemption from a season ago, while the other one looks to claim its first ever title. Time for talk has ended. Lets look at tonight's title game shall we.

The top team in the country in the Bulldogs of Gonzaga will be taking on the other number one seed left the Tar Heels of North Carolina. Before we dive into breaking down this matchup, lets take a look back at the seasons each of these schools has had and how we arrived at this point in time.

North Carolina rolled through the regular season finishing the year going 26-6. The Tar Heels earned top seed in the South Region, despite falling to Duke in the semifinal of the ACC tournament. In the 1st round of the 2017 NCAA Tournament, North Carolina rolled to a 103-64 win over Texas Southern, and they followed that up in the 2nd round against Arkansas. After blowing a 17-point 1st half lead and trailing 65-60 with under three minutes remaining, Kennedy Meeks led a North Carolina comeback with 16 points and a huge tip-in with 44.2 seconds remaining to put UNC ahead 68-65 as they would survive a scare against Arkansas and win 72-65 to advance to the Sweet 16. There, they beat Butler 92-80, thus advancing to the Elite Eight for the 26th time in program history. In an Elite Eight showdown between two college basketball blue bloods, Luke Maye made a jumper with 0.3 seconds left to beat Kentucky 75-73 and advance to their second consecutive Final Four appearance as well as their record-setting 20th appearance in the Final Four. North Carolina defeated Oregon 77-76 in the Final Four, led by Kennedy Meeks, who had a double-double career-high 25 points and 14 rebounds as well as a offensive rebound off of a Joel Berry II missed free throw with 4.0 seconds left, to advance to the championship game.

Now as for Gonzaga, they rolled to a 29-1 regular season record, winning both the West Coast Conference regular season and Conference titles, in order to earn the top seed in the West Region. Once the tournament got underway, Gonzaga came away with a 66-46 win over South Dakota State to get the ball rolling. In their 2nd round game against Northwestern, trailing by 5 with 5 minutes left after trailing by as many as 22 in the second half, Northwestern head coach Chris Collins stomped onto the court when a goal-tending call was missed, thus drawing a technical foul, ending Northwestern's chances of winning the game, as Gonzaga would prevail to win 79-73. In their Sweet 16 game against West Virginia, Jordan Mathews hit a go-ahead three-pointer with less than a minute remaining to give Gonzaga a 60-58 lead as Gonzaga would prevail to win 61-58 and advance to the Elite Eight. In the Elite Eight, led by Nigel Williams-Goss with 23 points, Gonzaga routed Xavier 83-59 to reach the Final Four for the first time in school history. Gonzaga defeated South Carolina 77-73 in the Final Four led by 23 points from Nigel Williams-Goss, 27 points from Gonzaga's big men, and a Josh Perkins foul preventing Sindarius Thornwell's game-tying three-pointer with 3.5 seconds left, to advance to the championship game.

So now that we know how are two teams made the final showdown, lets break it down shall we. North Carolina is making consecutive title game appearances for the first time since 1981 and 1982. Roy Williams, who will be coaching his 100th NCAA Tournament game tonight, is 41-10 all-time with the Tar Heels. One of the star players for this North Carolina team is forward Kennedy Meeks, who posted his 13th double-double with a career-best 25 points and 14 rebounds against Oregon. The Tar Heels are grabbing 15.6 offensive rebounds per game during the NCAA Tournament. One other Tar Heels player your going to want to keep an eye on tonight is forward Justin Jackson, who scored 13 of his 22 points in the second half on Saturday. The ACC Player of the Year is averaging a team-leading 18.3 points per contest. Oh and North Carolina is 1-1 all time in the tournament against Gonzaga, and that includes their win over the Zags in the 2009 Sweet 16.

Gonzaga is the fourth team to reach the championship with one or fewer losses. Bulldogs center Przemek Karnowski, who owns an NCAA-record 137 victories, is averaging 12.3 points and 5.8 rebounds per game. Another Gonzaga player to watch tonight is Nigel Williams-Goss. He led the Bulldogs with 23 points, six assists and five rebounds against South Carolina. The WCC Player of the Year is averaging a team-best 16.9 points and 4.7 assists per game. Gonzaga has shot a higher percentage from the field than its opponent in 46 consecutive games, which oh by the way, is the longest Division I streak in 20 years. Gonzaga is shooting 48.8 percent (21-for-43) from beyond the arc over the last two games.

There's no denying that the Tar Heels are good, and that Gonzaga has been the underdog all season long. Honestly, I think that's how Gonzaga likes it, because they've been proving everybody wrong time and time again this season. Vegans has North Carolina as a two point favorite going into this contest.  That's what Gonzaga wants, they always play better when nobody gives them a chance to pull out a win. North Carolina is going to put up one hell of a fight, but at the end of the day the Bulldogs of Gonzaga are going to finish the job going wire to wire. Gonzaga brings home a national championship.

Final Score: Gonzaga 79, North Carolina 73