CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Rick Pitino had a suggestion for Roy Williams before Pitino’s Louisville Cardinals and Williams’ North Carolina Tar Heels hit the court here at Bobcats Arena for tonight’s highly-anticipated East Regional final.
Williams maintains playing in his home state is not the massive home-court advantage everyone is making it out to be, going as far as to say “I don’t believe in that [garbage]” and insisting “If my team plays well we have a chance to win in Siberia. If my team plays poorly, we have a chance to lose in Chapel Hill, which we did twice this year.”
Pitino, 0-3 against the Tar Heels in his career, doesn’t need the game moved to Siberia, but he does have an idea how to even things out as Louisville seeks to upset the nation’s top-ranked team.
“Tell Roy to get on a plane for the first time and let’s play the game in Freedom Hall if he feels that way,” Pitino said yesterday. “Go to Lexington for that matter. Play it at Rupp.”
Don’t think so.
“I would not have taken that deal,” Williams said. “I would rather stay in Charlotte.” Duh.
The Tar Heels this season are 5-0 in this building and all-time are 24-1 in tournament games in North Carolina. After a winning weekend in Raleigh to begin the NCAA tournament, No. 1 seed North Carolina (35-2) traveled 143 miles southwest and laid waste to Washington State 68-47 in a lopsided regional semifinal game. In order to finally leave the state and get to the Final Four in San Antonio, the Tar Heels must first get past No. 3 seed Louisville (27-8), and there’s no doubt who the home crowd will be pulling for.
“I don’t think there’s a home-court advantage,” Pitino said, jokingly. “I think those are mostly mannequins dressed in powder blue. I say this in all honesty, there’s a very strong home-court advantage, but they deserve it. They’re the No. 1 seed. That doesn’t mean we don’t have the ability to win.”
It’s Pitino’s job to mastermind a strategy to overcome that premier team, on the road no less, in order to beat Williams to a rare distinction. Both coaches are tied for sixth place with five Final Four appearances apiece.
These Tar Heels are dominating like never before. Their 35 victories is a school record. The 47 points given up to Washington State was the fewest they have allowed in an NCAA tournament since 1946. Never before has a North Carolina team won three straight tourney games by more than 20 points, and this group has gone above and beyond, winning by 39, 31 and 21. The winning streak is now 14, the last loss Jan. 19 to Maryland.
“To get to the Final Four I think every team has to play a team that’s really good,” said Tyler Hansbrough, Carolina’s leading scorer (22.6) and rebounder (10.2). “It’s not an easy road.”
It figures to be a speedy road, as both these clubs want to get out and run. Louisville’s best hope is that its ever-changing defense – going from full-court presses to aggressive zones to straight man-to-man – can force the Tar Heels into bad shots and turnovers. The Cardinals are getting superb play off the bench from 6-foot-9 sophomore Earl Clark, who has led Louisville in scoring in all three tournament games, won by 18, 30 and 19 points.
“On the road we know the crowd is against us,” Louisville forward Terrence Williams said. “In order to get them to be quiet, we got to play great defense and take ’em out of the game early. As Coach P always says before the game, the crowd can’t score a point for them, so they can do all the screaming and hollering they want.”