Why North Carolina will cut down the nets at the Final Four
The 2016 Final Four features three teams, North Carolina, Oklahoma and Villanova, that spent a combined nine weeks at No. 1 in the polls this season. (It also features Syracuse.) That trio ranked No. 2 (UNC), No. 6 (Oklahoma) and No. 7 (Villanova) on the selection committee's true seed list. (Syracuse was No. 39.) They come into the tourney a combined 94-17. (Syracuse is 23-13.)
All three are excellent teams, but make no mistake: The Tar Heels head to Houston the favorites to cut down the nets.
It's not just because they're the lone remaining No. 1 seed.
It's not just because they're most talented of the group.
It's because Roy Williams' team is the best constructed of the four to contend with this weekend's unspoken adversary: NRG Stadium.
This Final Four's host venue has become notorious as a place where college basketball shot-takers come to die. It's the stadium where, in 2011, Connecticut won a national title game despite shooting 34.5 percent from the field, because its opponent, Butler, shot just 18.8 percent. Shudder at the memory.
It's a stadium where, in last year's Sweet 16 games there, UCLA and Gonzaga combined to miss 19 straight shots in one, while Duke and Utah opened up 2-of-17 in the other.
Ken Pomeroy wrote a subsequent blog post tracing the shooting performances in every college game played in the Texans' stadium and concluded that "... it's only slightly easier to make 3-point shots at NRG Stadium than it is on an aircraft carrier.
Mind you, Pomeroy also began by acknowledging he's "still open to the possibility of randomness" about the trend. After all, NRG is hardly the only venue that's hosted the NCAA's mid-football field/elevated floor configuration, which can throw off shooters' depth perceptions. In fact, the next day, eventual national champion Duke went out and hit 8-of-19 3-pointers in an Elite Eight victory over Gonzaga (which made just 2 of 10.)
But in the off chance Duke was an aberration, and that in fact Houston's football stadium is haunted by nefarious anti-swish forces, this year's Final Four will be much kinder to teams that don't rely heavily on 3-point shots.
Which, in the case of this field, is North Carolina and North Carolina alone.
As Sports Illustrated's Luke Winn noted Sunday, Villanova, Syracuse and Oklahoma all attempt more than 40 percent of their field goals from beyond the arc. They embody the sport's larger Golden State Warriors-driven trend toward more and more 3-balls. Per Winn, 2011 VCU was the only other such Final Four team in the previous decade.
No one can deny how fun it would be to watch Buddy Hield deep-shoot Oklahoma to the national title the same way he dropped 37 points on Oregon -- which included eight 3-pointers -- in an Elite Eight masterpiece Sunday. Hield is college basketball's most effective long-range shooter since Stephen Curry himself led Davidson to the 2008 Elite Eight.
But his team is hardly immune to the effects of an off-shooting night, even when not playing in a football stadium. After starting 19-2, both Hield and the Sooners saw their shooting percentages drop during a 6-5 stretch coming into the tourney. They'll need to keep up their more recent pace to win two more.
Villanova was more 3-ball heavy during the regular season than they've been since the tourney started. In fact, the Wildcats made just 4-of-18 treys in their upset of No. 1 seed Kansas on Saturday. They've won with perimeter defense more so than perimeter shooting. On the season, though, they've taken 43.1 percent of their shoots from behind the arc.
Syracuse's hallmark is of course its stingy zone defense, and these particular Orange eat up the offensive glass. But they, too, take 42.2 percent of their shots from three, and their comeback from a 16-point deficit against top seed Virginia on Sunday came in part due to Malachi Richardson's hot hand.
Then there's North Carolina.
If 3-point barrages are college basketball's hippest trend, consider the Tar Heels curmudgeons. They prefer the quaint philosophy of getting as close to the basket as possible. Out of 351 Division I teams, UNC ranks 337th in percentage of shots from three at just 26.8 percent. In Sunday's win over Notre Dame, the Heels scored nearly half of their 88 points in the paint.
The only way North Carolina could differ more drastically from their fellow Final Four participants' offensive identities would be to pull out Dean Smith's four corners for 40 minutes.
Which makes this Final Four an interesting test case for college basketball. The Tar Heels most closely resemble the mold of past national champions, which makes them the safe pick to make it through Monday. But it's not like there's a huge gap between they and the Sooners or Wildcats. Notre Dame on Sunday succeeded for much of the night in slowing down fast-paced UNC; it just couldn't make enough shoots. Oklahoma and Villanova are far more potent. (Syracuse is not.)
But Williams built this team for just this occasion. Brice Johnson, Justin Jackson, Kennedy Meeks and Isaiah Hicks are long and extremely effective. Marcus Paige and Joel Berry can shoot and drive. UNC is not as experienced across the board as senior-heavy Oklahoma, not as stingy defensively as Villanova and not as ... umm, orange (?) as Syracuse.
But the Heels will be the most talented and the most balanced team in Houston.
And perhaps most importantly, they're the least likely to be affected by whatever mysterious vortex plagues NRG Stadium 3-point shooters.
