First Round

By Harold Bechard

The Salina (KS) Journal

CHICAGO- You'll have a tough time convincing Ball State coach Dick Hunsaker that Kansas had been mired in a shooting slump. But, the fact is this: The Jayhawks hadn't hit better than 50 percent from the field since Jan. 30- a span of 12 games.

The Jayhawks took care of that bit of trivia in a big way Thursday afternoon with a dynamite shooting display that finally subdued the upset minded Cardinals in the first round of the Midwest Regional.

Kansas hit 56 percent from the field and outscored Ball State by 20 points in the final 13 minutes to roll to a 94-72 victory at the Rosemont Horizon.

The victory boosted the Jayhawks (26-6) into Saturday's 3:30 p.m. second round game against Brigham Young.

Ball State (26-8) ended its season after giving Kansas all it could handle for much of Thursday's game. The Cardinals, despite missing nine of their last 10 shots, hit 53 percent from the field to stay dangerously close to KU until the final minutes.

"For thirty minutes, we played as well as we could possibly play," Hunsaker said. "We played them tooth and nail."

In the end, however, two things buried the Mid-American Conference co-champions- KU's depth and accurate shooting.

The Jayhawks had nine players play 12 minutes or more and two others combine for 16 more. Although the two benches each scored 22 points, Ball State lost its legs and shooting touch in the final 10 minutes.

"They actually become more athletic when they go to the bench," Hunsaker said of KU. "We just never could quite get the lead and that's what you need to do as a huge underdog."

The Cardinals came close to taking the lead on several occasions, but each time, a KU player stepped up and buried a jump shot.

No one was bigger than KU guard Rex Walters. The 6-4 senior, who was back in the city where he spent two years at Northwestern (1988-90), tied an NCAA Tournament record by hitting six straight 3-pointers. He finished with 23 points, five assists and four rebounds.

"Rex was sensational," KU coach Roy Williams said. Walters wasn't alone.

� Backcourt-mate Adonis Jordan produced a double-double- 13 points and 11 assists- as well as four steals after scoring just three points in the first half.

� Senior center Eric Pauley, playing with an injured left knee, hit 9 of 13 shots- five of them beyond 15 feet- to finish with 18 points.

� Junior forward Richard Scott, a player Hunsaker called "the most underrated player in America," scored 16 points and grabbed four boards.

� Steve Woodberry came off the bench and finished with 10 points, but had a part in three of the game's biggest plays.

� Sophomore center Greg Ostertag, needed because of second half foul trouble to Pauley, came through with eight points, four rebounds and two blocked shots in 14 minutes.

All in all, it was a game to savor for Kansas. Not only did the Jayhawks win, but they looked good doing it.

"They played well and we had to play very well to beat them," Williams said of Ball State. "It was a challenge for us because everyone has been putting us in the grave. The kids and coaches got tired of it."

And Hunsaker's worst fears were realized as KU took its frustration out on his team.

"We have been playing great basketball for seven weeks now, as fine as Ball State has played since I've been here," Hunsaker said. "Kansas, conversly, had not been playing extremely well and everyone had been talking about how poorly they have been playing."

"But, it's kind of like telling (super model) Christie Brinkley she's losing it. That's just not the case."

Although Kansas never trailed after a 3-pointer by Walters at the 15:12 mark of the first half, the Jayhawks never shook the Cardinals until 25 minutes later.

With both teams hitting high percentages in the first half- KU 60 percent and Ball State 58 percent- Kansas never opened up more than a nine-point lead during the middle part of the game.

But the Cardinals never overtook KU, either. Ball State cut KU's lead to one point five times, two points on five more occasions and three points three other times, but never got over the hump.

Second Round

By Harold Bechard

The Salina (KS) Journal

CHICAGO- The Kansas Jayhawks are back in the NCAA Tournament's "Sweet 16" because of the sweet stroke of Rex Walters. Walters, proving that Chicago is his kind of town, scored a career-high 28 points on Saturday to propel the Jayhawks to a 90-76 victory over Brigham Young in the Midwest Regional.

The victory advances the Jayhawks into the third round of the NCAA Tournament for the sixth time in 12 years where they will meet the surprising California Bears, a stunning upset winner over two-time defending national champion Duke.

The Jayhawks and Bears will square off Thursday night in the regional semifinals in St. Louis. But first things first. The victory wipes out the bitter memories of last year's devastating second-round loss to Texas-El Paso.

Well, almost.

"This right here has taken a big load off our shoulders," KU head coach Roy Williams said.

But, just like two days earlier against Ball State, the final score doesn't tell the whole story. Kansas (27-6) used a 23-4 run in the final four minutes to break open what looked to be a game that would go down to the wire.

The Jayhawks trailed by one point (68-67) with 4:38 remaining in the game when they quickly destroyed the upset hopes of the Cougars from the Western Athletic Conference.

Adonis Jordan and Steve Woodberry took turns burying 3-point shots to start a 10-0 run and the Jayhawks followed that up with a 9-0 run a short time later to put the game away.

But while Jordan and Woodberry provided the spark, Walters lit the fire. The 6-4 senior hit 9 of 15 shots from the field and all eight of his free throws to eclipse his career-high scoring mark by one point. He added six rebounds and as many assists in a dazzling 30-minute performance in front of the sellout crowd of 17,463 in the Rosemont Horizon.

While Walters was the main story on his first trip back to Chicago since his days at Northwestern, he had plenty of help.

� Woodberry, with ice water in his veins, came off the bench to hit one of the game's biggest 3-pointers and finish with 14 points.

� Patrick Richey joined the heroics with 22 quality minutes off the bench, scoring 13 points and grabbing four rebounds.

� Jordan, who hit the game's biggest trey, finished with 13 points, five assists and three steals.

� Eric Pauley helped keep KU on top in early with 11 of his 12 points in the first half and also finished with seven rebounds and four steals.

And don't forget the Jayhawks' free throw shooting. KU went head-to-head with one of the nation's best free throw shooting teams and didn't blink, hitting 27 of 34 in the game.

"The strongest part about Kansas basketball is if you're down, someone will be in there to pick you up," Williams said. "And we had plenty of guys do the job today."

The well went dry for the Cougars just when it looked like the WAC would send the Jayhawks home packing for the second straight year in the second round.

With 6-4 senior Nick Sanderson burying one 3-pointer after another and the Cougars using their size inside, BYU stayed with Kansas for 36 minutes and never lost contact despite trailing by 10 points (45-35) at halftime.

A 9-0 run by the Cougars in three minutes knotted the game at 60-60 with 9:31 remaining. The Cougars (25-9) then took a 68-67 lead with 4:38 remaining after a pair of free throws by guard Randy Reid.

"We were right where we wanted to be," BYU coach Roger Reid said.

That turned around as quickly as Jordan could bury a 3-pointer from the top of the key to give KU a 70-68 lead with 4:11 remaining.

After a miss by Sanderson, who had six 3-pointers in the game and a team-high 24 points, Woodberry drained a trey from deep in the corner to put the Jayhawks up by five.

Brigham Young's Jared Miller was then called for a offensive foul at the 2:55 mark, which led to a pair of free throws by Richey. Richey then added two more free throws 14 seconds later after another miss by Sanderson and the Jayhawks were on their way.

"We were trying to get the ball to certain people, but ultimately, we didn't get the shot we wanted," Reid said. "A critical call during that time was when Jared Miller was charged with an offensive foul.''

Walters then polished off his performance with an offensive rebound and free throw and a breakaway slam dunk as Kansas led by as many as 18 points in the final minute.

"We just let it slip away," Reid said. "Their defensive pressure was too much for us."

Kansas forced BYU into 21 turnovers and the Cougars, who had hit 12 of their first 17 shots in the second half, missed six in a row during KU's final dash to the finish line.

"We were a little fresher and it looked like we just wore them down," Williams said. "And I thought we caused them some problems with our half-court pressure."

Sanderson led BYU with 24 points and Miller added 13.

Regional Semifinal

ST. LOUIS (AP)- Hot-shooting Rex Walters outplayed freshman sensation Jason Kidd on Thursday night and helped Kansas end California's golden trip through the NCAA Tournament (video).

Walters scored 24 points and was 4-for-5 from three-point range as second-seeded Kansas beat sixth-seeded Cal 93-76. Kansas hit eight of 11 three-point attempts overall. The Jayhawks (28-6) will play top-seeded Indiana (31-3) in the regional final Saturday night.

Walters, who made eight of nine shots overall, has saved his best for the tournament. He's averaging 14.2 points, but he had 23 points in the first round against Ball State, then 28 against Brigham Young. In the three games he's a combined 24-for-33 from the field, including 12-of-17 from three-point range.

Adonis Jordan added 15 points and Steve Woodberry had 13- all in the second half- for Kansas.

That was enough to stop California (21-9), which had been 11-1 since 29-year-old Todd Bozeman was named coach on Feb. 8, including victories over LSU and two time defending NCAA champion Duke in the tournament.

Kidd did his best to put the Golden Bears into high gear with his up tempo play. Despite frequent double-teaming, he finished with 13 points, 11 assists and four turnovers before fouling out with 1 minute, 21 seconds to play. That effort came close to his first two tournament games. His last-second layup beat LSU 66-64 and he had 14 assists against Duke.

Kansas trailed 52-48 with 15:38 to play before putting away California with a 22-6 run. Walters ended a streak of nine consecutive points with a three-pointer and two free throws to make it 59-52, then the Jayhawks took advantage of a 2-for-12 shooting slump by California to pull away.

Kansas hit 19 of 22 free throws in the final 15:38 and finished the game 21 for 25.

Walters hit a driving shot off the glass with 2.2 seconds left and completed a three-point play to give Kansas a 43-40 lead at the half.

Regional Final

By Linda Robertson

Knight-Ridder Newspapers

ST. LOUIS- Kansas coach Roy Williams, a four-mile-a-day jogger, coaches basketball games as if his players are running a marathon- at a steady and unspectacular pace that is as relentless as a metronome.

Saturday, every time Indiana's Calbert Cheaney bent over to catch his breath, he saw another wave of Kansas subs coming in, their lungs clean, legs fresh.

Kansas wore down Indiana like water on a stone to win the NCAA Midwest Regional. 83-77, and advance to the Final Four in New Orleans.

"They kept running in three or four guys every five or six minutes," said Cheaney, who ended his brilliant college career without an NCAA championship.

"Every time I came off a screen, they had somebody waiting for me. So we set double screens, and they still had somebody waiting for me."

Williams will go to his second Final Four in just five years as a head coach; to play the winner of today's North Carolina-Cincinnati game. If North Carolina wins, Williams will play against mentor Dean Smith.

"We haven't exactly been the favorite, but we're a poised team," said Williams, who spit into the Mississippi River for good luck before his two games at St. Louis Arena. "Thank goodness the Mississippi runs all the way down to New Orleans. We'll try it again down there."

Williams is 3-0 against Indiana coach Bob Knight, who was denied a sixth trip to the Final Four with a No. 1 ranked team many thought would bring him a fourth national championship.

But a late-season knee injury to center Alan Henderson finally caught up to Indiana.

Although Knight was gracious in saying Henderson's absence "made no difference," Indiana was outmanned inside. Matt Nover, the Hoosiers' one true post players, was held to nine points- two in the second half. Forward Brian Evans, playing with a broken thumb, scored 10.

Kansas� four rotating front-liners scored 47.

"We made a concentrated effort to get it inside," Williams said. "Without Henderson- which is such a tragedy- we were stronger and taller inside."

Indiana led on only three possessions. Kansas fought off two Indiana surges in the last five minutes.

"Their defense was exceptional." Knight said. "Mostly what we did was hang in. Their depth is part of their strength. We've got to score 80 against a team like Kansas."

It was the fourth straight game in which five Kansas players scored in double figures.

Indiana had to rely heavily on Cheaney and Greg Graham, who combined for 45 points. Graham was burdened by four fouls late in the game. Cheaney did not get a minute's rest, and Kansas used three different players to scramble through Indiana's minefield of picks to keep up with him.

"We wanted to keep giving Calbert different looks," Williams said. "We started with Richard Scott and told him he'd have to shadow Calbert. Then we put Darrin Hancock and Steve Woodberry on him. And they're our two best perimeter defenders."

Kansas led by as many as eight points in the second half, but Graham's driving layup with 1:36 left narrowed the gap to 76-73.

Kansas countered with a lightning fast-break layup from Rex Walters to Adonis Jordan.

"That was a tremendously alert play when Walters drove down the sideline for the quick basket." Knight said.

On the next play. Indiana's hopes sank further when Cheaney and Evans missed jumpers and Eric Pauley swatted away a third Indiana attempt. Walters sank both ends of a one-arid-one free-throw opportunity with 51 seconds left for an 80-73 lead.

"Our guards made great plays down the stretch," Williams said. "I've always said I wouldn't trade Jordan, Walters and Woodberry for anybody in the country."

A layup by Kansas' smallest sub, Calvin Rayford, gave the Jayhawks their biggest lead, 58-50, at the 11:22 mark (video).

After two Kansas turnovers, including a bad alley-oop pass by Jordan that had Williams laughing with clenched teeth, a Cheaney fall-away brought Indiana to within four points.

But Kansas kept coming up with more body blows. While five Indiana players logged 27 minutes or more. Kansas spread the workload among 11 with only Jordan playing more than 30 minutes.

A Damon Bailey follow concluded a 10-2 Indiana run that put the Hoosiers ahead 48-46 with 14:10 to go.

In the first half, Kansas established its inside game early, getting 11 of its initial 15 points from the front line en route to an eight-point lead.

After a Jordan three-pointer gave the Jayhawks a 28-20 edge at the seven-minute mark, the Hoosiers countered with an 11-2 run that put them ahead for the first time, 31-30, with 3:07 left. Cheaney scored six during the rally.

National Semifinal

NEW ORLEANS (AP)- Eric Montross, North Carolina's mountainous Mr. Inside, and Donald Williams, the slick shooting Mr, Outside, took turns pummeling Kansas.

Montross dunked, Williams popped a 3-pointer. Montross flicked in a soft, short hook, Williams tossed up another 3-pointer. They were like a quick jab and a roundhouse right coming at Kansas all Saturday night, and after a 78-68 victory in the Final Four the Tar Heels are back in the championship game in the same Superdome where last they won the NCAA title in 1982.

Clawed and bleeding, wrapped in tape on his fingers and shin, Montross flexed his muscles and shook off pesky Kansas from start to finish.

The 7-footer was unstoppable under the backboards, scoring 23 points and clogging the middle on defense, while Williams surpassed him from the outside with 25 after hitting five 3-pointers in seven attempts.

"We needed Donald Williams' outside shooting and he really came through," North Carolina coach Dean Smith said. "And our big people did a great job on their big people."

North Carolina led virtually from the start, yet every time the Tar Heels seemed on the brink of breaking open the game, Kansas shot its way back behind Adonis Jordan and Rex Walters' 19 points apiece. Kansas' starting front line accounted for a total of only 15 points.

"Their whole team's a lot stronger," Walters said. "This is the second most physical game we've played in all year. I haven't seen that much strength in a team since we played Michigan. Physically, they put bodies on you. Not their big guys only, but their guards, too."

"Whenever we'd make a run, whenever me or Adonis would make a three, they'd come right back and get it inside. They just physically wore us down."

Kansas may have been worn down and beaten up, but the Jayhawks never quit in a game that was thrilling throughout.

Only in the final minute, when North Carolina pulled away 75-65 and Kansas was forced to foul, did the victory seem certain for the Tar Heels.

This was a brilliant matchup of styles, dictated more by the size and talents of the players than the similarities between Smith and his former assistant, Roy Williams of Kansas.

Montross inside and Williams outside scored 29 of North Carolina's 38 points in the second half, and there was nothing Kansas could do to contain them.

"Our offense is basically go inside and hopefully open up the outside stuff," said forward George Lynch, who had 14 points and 10 rebounds. "Eric did a great job of taking it to them, so there was no reason to go to any other option."

North Carolina (33-4) moved within a victory of repeating its run to the championship here. In Smith's 32 years guiding the Tar Heels, they've reached the Final Four nine times and the championship game five times.

The victory evened Smith's friendly rivalry with Williams, whose Jayhawks beat the Tar Heels in the NCAA semifinals in 1991 before falling to Duke in the championship game.

"Two years ago, we made the plays down the stretch and they didn't," Williams said. "This time, it was just reversed. But besides the coaches and players on that staff, there won't be anybody in the world rooting harder for North Carolina Monday night than I will be."

Kansas (29-7) last won the national title in 1988, but then went on three years' probation for infractions before Williams took over the following season. The Jayhawks' only other NCAA championship in nine Final Four appearances came in 1952.

The contrast this time couldn't have been clearer on offense: North Carolina's size and inside strength against Kansas' outside shooting. The Tar Heels out rebounded the Jayhawks 35-24.

From the start, when Montross opened with a short jumper and Jordan responded with a 3-pointer, the pattern was set.

Each team showed off its similar trapping defenses, North Carolina more often pressing from backcourt to basket, but on offense the teams went separate ways.

Montross, who has quick, strong moves and an eye for assists, helped North Carolina to a 12-6 lead. But outside shooting by Jordan and Walters, who had 13 points in the first half with three 3-pointers in five attempts, closed the gap to 21-20.

The Tar Heels then went on a 9-0 run for a 30-20 lead, keyed again by Montross and Lynch, who had four of his 10 first-half points during that span.

Both teams took aim from outside the 3-point line for the rest of the half, Williams hitting for North Carolina, Walters for Kansas, and the Jayhawks cut their deficit down to 40-36 with a long jumper at the buzzer by Darrin Hancock.

"The first 14, 15 minutes of the game, I didn't think our defensive intensity was as good as it needed to be," Williams said. "But when we got it back to four at halftime, I felt real good because we hadn't played our best game by any means and we were only down by four."

But the pattern continued in the second half, Montross tapping in an offensive rebound in the opening seconds, Walters hitting his fourth 3-pointer. Each time Montross seemed to knock everyone away and put the North Carolina in control- he scored eight of the Tar Heels' first 10 points in the second half- the resilient Jayhawks came back. Jordan hit a 3-pointer, Scott a couple of rare Kansas layups, and suddenly Kansas was down only 48-46.

Montross did it again, hitting two a short hook and a layup to help North Carolina go ahead 54-46, but once more a 3-pointer by Jordan started the Jayhawks back.

The Jayhawks chased relentlessly, yet each time they came close Montross and Williams kept North Carolina out front.

National Championship Game

Sports Illustrated

April 12, 1993

Alexander Wolff

Know this about what it's like to play against the Tar Heels of coach Dean Smith and the University of North Carolina: Eventually you run out of time. Eventually you run out of timeouts. Eventually the passing of the years delivers Smith a brace of players so perfectly meant to play with one another- and for him- that they bring to glorious life all the precepts and rules and dicta of the Carolina way.

To secure his second NCAA title, with a 77-71 win over Michigan in New Orleans on Monday night, Smith- Dean, Dean the Witch Doctor Mean- dipped into his trusty gris-gris bag, just as he did in the same Louisiana Superdome in 1982, when Fred Brown of Georgetown inexplicably threw a pass to the Tar Heels' James Worthy and thus cast a long-tongued kid named Michael Jordan in his now familiar role as hero. Once more, nothing rational, no philosophy, no scheme, no system, to use the word Smith so disdains but won't ever escape, can fully account for the strange doings in a title game involving Carolina on the Bayou.

In the final seconds, with the Tar Heels up two threadbare points and Michigan holding the ball, the Wolverines' splendid sophomore Chris Webber incurred a technical foul by calling a timeout his team didn't have. As the Tar Heels celebrate their third NCAA crown, the Final Four's Most Outstanding Player, Donald Williams- like Mike, a native North Carolinian and a shooter of wondrous skill- and his teammates should use "laissez les jump shots rouler" as their partying cry and give a nod of thanks to the mambo kings and queens of black magic. The Superdome court may have been manufactured in Michigan, but Monday night's baskets, through which Williams seemed to toss the ball at will, were made in North Carolina.

You can hear Smith now, in his contrarian twang: Donald needs to work on his passing and defense. He's a shooter, just a small part of the team. And Smith is right; was this not his most exquisitely assembled team? Its foundation came to Chapel Hill three autumns ago as the class of '94, the ballyhooed group of players- center Eric Montross, point guard Derrick Phelps, small forward Brian Reese, power forward Clifford Rozier and swingman Pat Sullivan- who were quickly forgotten when Michigan brought in its Fab Five a year later. Smith's group benefited from perfect subtraction (the malcontent Rozier transferred to Louisville after one season) and perfect addition (Williams and his crystalline jump shot arrived as Rozier left), while the perfect senior (the indomitable George Lynch) stood fast. Like spackling compound, a passer (Henrik R�dl) and a shot blocker (Kevin Salvadori) filled cracks and provided cohesion.

There's an optimal balance between freedom and responsibility that those who work with young people- teachers, parents and coaches alike- all strive to find. With these Tar Heels, Smith locked in on that balance and held fast to the coordinates. By late February the team's offensive decision-making ability caught up with a soundness at the defensive end that had carried it to that point. As Smith granted them more and more license, the players kept reciprocating, showing an ever keener sense of obligation. Smith would never admit it, for he flatly refuses to compare his teams, but no other had so completely bought into what he teaches.

Cynics might say that Smith, a man obsessed with minutiae, would especially savor a victory secured on a technicality. But they would miss the truth about this season's team, a group that allowed Smith to be more malleable than ever. The North Carolina coach promulgated the most recent of his rules last month, shortly after Phelps bruised his tailbone during the ACC tournament. Like any coach, Smith was tempted to hurry such an irreplaceable player back sooner than might have been prudent. Instead he vowed that no one would talk him into playing Phelps before the coach judged him ready. Certainly if a player was limping, out he would come.

So there was Phelps, seven minutes into the second half of the Tar Heels' semifinal game against Kansas, taking a hard fall and landing on his pelvis. After sitting out for 41 seconds, he came back in. Though clearly favoring his side and grimacing with every step, he carried on for more than a minute before Smith replaced him with senior Scott Cherry, a plucky reserve who, nevertheless, is essentially a glorified walk-on. No sooner had Phelps left than the Jayhawks' Adonis Jordan picked Reese clean and sailed in for a layup. Shortly thereafter Williams mishandled a pass from Cherry.

With that, Smith turned to Reese, who is Phelps's roommate. "You know him better than anybody," Smith said. "Can he play?"

"He can play," Reese replied, and one of Smith's rules met its exception. Phelps checked back in, and North Carolina celebrated his return by forcing a 45-second violation. The Jayhawks soon found themselves in tears at the Final Four for the second time in three years, after they lost 78-68.

A North Carolina box score from this season is like a passage of Hemingway: terse but eloquent and full of idiosyncrasy. Parse the final box from the Kansas game and you'll find every hallmark of these Tar Heels. The center gets the most shots (Montross took 14). The point guard (Phelps) passes off for baskets (six times) twice as often as he shoots (three). The power forward rebounds in double figures (Lynch pulled down 10). And the team's shooting guard (Williams) takes the three-point shots (he launched all seven of the Tar Heels' threes) and makes them (five found bottom).

Monday night's defeat of Michigan, on the other hand, seemed at first blush to be the work not of any sentient hand, but of d�j� voodoo. Then again, maybe it wasn't; maybe North Carolina caused Webber's gaffe. Early in the second half, in what seemed to be a meaningless incident at the time, Phelps and Lynch sandwiched the Wolverines' Jalen Rose, denying him a simple inbounds pass from teammate Juwan Howard. To avoid a five-second violation, Howard had to burn a timeout- the timeout that Webber will forever wish had been there to call at the end.

The title game lurched strangely to-and-fro, with numerous lead changes that weren't swings of one or two points, but great tidal ebbs. North Carolina by five. Michigan by 10. Then the Tar Heels back up by eight. Then, with 4:31 left, the Wolverines led by four. That's when Williams unspooled his fifth and final three-pointer (5 for 7 in the semis followed by 5 for 7 in the final; some systems analyst- sorry, Dean- must have fit him with a powder-blue silicon chip).

The upperclassmen took over from there. Phelps, after a block by Lynch, sailed in for the layup that pushed North Carolina ahead by a point. Lynch himself then knocked in a short turnaround jumper to put the Tar Heels up by three. Rose then fumbled the ball in traffic, and Williams intercepted, leading to a thunderous dunk by Montross. When Ray Jackson tossed in a jumper, Michigan called timeout, trailing 72-69. Forty-six seconds remained. In the huddle the coaches reminded the Wolverines that they had no timeouts left. "We thought we mentioned it," head coach Steve Fisher said later. "Apparently we didn't make the point specific enough."

Reese made a gift of the ball to the Wolverines by stepping over the sideline while receiving the ensuing inbounds pass, and Webber put back another errant three-pointer by Rose. Thus when Sullivan stepped to the line with 20 seconds to play, the Tar Heels led by only one point, 72-71. "This is for the national championship, baby," said Michigan's Rob Pelinka to Sullivan as he sighted the first of a one-and-one. The shot dropped through.

The second, however, kicked off to the left, where Webber picked it clean, just in front of the North Carolina bench. As the rest of the players retreated downcourt, Webber pivoted, and then clearly dragged his pivot foot before dribbling. Every last Tar Heel player, coach and team manager leaped high in protest when no whistle sounded. None could have known that Webber would soon make amends for the referees' oversight.

Phelps and Lynch dogged Webber up the sideline, and with 11 seconds remaining he covered up, bringing his hands together, perpendicular to each other and throwing the familiar glance at an official. Even before the technical was called, the Tar Heel bench erupted again, for everyone on it knew the Wolverines had already spent their last timeout and the title was now Carolina's. "Why did it happen?" Fisher would say. "How did it happen? Sometimes you get in the heat of the moment and things happen that you just say, 'It can't happen.'" As Williams knocked down both technical shots, and two more free throws after Michigan fouled on the next possession, somewhere Fred Brown must have been laughing.

The Wolverines had been lionhearts in beating Kentucky 81-78 in overtime to reach the title game. They sank their foul shots, played floor-slapping defense and scrapped back after trailing by four in the extra period. All in all, throughout this tournament, they did more than any team should be obliged to do to repudiate the poisonous lies about "underachievement" that had lately achieved the status of conventional wisdom. "It's a shame that Michigan will probably get some new label for losing this game," said Sullivan. "They came this close to winning two titles and being labeled a dynasty."

Deano, too, came to Webber's defense. "I don't think that timeout necessarily cost Michigan the game," he said. "We only had three team fouls at that point, and we were going to keep fouling them to use up the clock." As usual Smith had every angle covered, every possible trump card ready to play.

The coach can deny it all he wants, but there are certainly many constituent systems to whatever it is North Carolina does. There is an honor system: If you're dragging, you flash a clenched fist, the "tired signal," and the coach will take you out. But because you have credited the team with your honesty, the team rewards you, letting you return to the game whenever you're ready; Smith merely tells you whom to replace.

There's a buddy system, too. Each Tar Heel is paired with another. When Williams gives the tired signal, R�dl usually enters the lineup. When Reese flashes the sign, Sullivan fills in. When Montross wants out, Salvadori is sprinting to the scorer's table.

There is also an electrical system of sorts- or there had been. Since the three-pointer was introduced in 1986, good shooters had a green light to shoot threes, those with a less deft touch had a yellow light (they could shoot only under certain circumstances) and a few lived on Deano's own Bourbon Street, in his red-light district. "'Red light, green light' was making me more hesitant," says Reese, who was one of several Tar Heels who went to Smith during the off-season and prevailed upon him to scrap the rule. "This year there is no light, and the team is more comfortable with its shots. Coach Smith knows that a team of juniors and seniors isn't going to try anything wild."

Do all these systems add up to some sort of supersystem? Ultimately none of this is nearly as bloodless as the word system might suggest. It has been well documented how Smith, during his fourth season as head coach, returned to Chapel Hill from a loss at Wake Forest in 1965 to find that he had been hung in effigy. In the following, decisive months- before he had taken teams to Final Fours in four different decades- he found solace in a book called Beyond Our Selves, given to him by his sister, Joan. One chapter, "The Power of Helplessness," allowed him to turn a trick of paradox: An individual could plumb his own depths for strength, so long as he recognized that there were limits to what that strength could accomplish. Hence North Carolina's pathological exaltation of the team over the individual. (Hence, too, the intermittent revelations when Tar Heels enter the NBA and we find ourselves wondering why we had never seen the full breadth of their skill in Chapel Hill.)

Today Smith practices a self-effacement so scrupulous that it calls attention to itself. He's fastidious not only about remembering people's names but at memorizing the details that go with them and then using those recollections as a shield, to deflect any attention that might hunt him down. Last week Smith was feted, along with the other Final Four coaches, at a huge NCAA gala at which he was obliged to speak under conditions- at the center of a cavernous hall, with no podium to hide behind, literally in the spotlight- that made his discomfort palpable. Sure enough Smith was soon pointing out someone at a back table, a woman who had asked him for an autograph earlier in the evening, a Margaret from Arkansas.

There also abides in Smith much of the activist spirit that helped integrate lunch counters and campaigned for a nuclear freeze- the man who, like John Stuart Mill, believes that society is perfectible. The coach takes after the public man, and thus his teams are the product of constant refinement. This season the legend of his obsession with detail grew: When Montross and Reese caught a slow elevator before the Tar Heels' opening game in the ACC tournament and wound up a minute and 20 seconds late for a team meeting, that's how much time elapsed in North Carolina's next game before Smith sent them to the scorer's table to check in. Yet for all the rigor Smith brings to the game, none of his many rules is immutable. A Brian Reese can walk into his office and change Smith's mind.

There is also a part of Smith that repudiates secularism, that still holds fast to Beyond Our Selves. One player who recognizes this is R�dl, who suggests that the team's interdependency is well expressed in the epistles of Paul in the New Testament, which speak of the body's many parts. "You may not be equal in talent," says R�dl, "but everybody is equal in the eyes of God, whether you're a good player or a bad player." The coach is a sort of minister, vested with the duty to serve his ad hoc flock. He must see that the better players play more, of course, and remind players and press alike that differences in talent are matters relevant to how we make our way in the world. But he must also see to it that three years of investment in "how we do things at North Carolina" bring one closer to a state of grace than a few months do. That's why the senior walk-on adorns the cover of the media guide while the hotshot freshman helps the managers lug equipment. That's why junior college interlopers are not welcomed. And that's why, after Saturday's victory, Smith said (as he almost always manages to say), "I thought Scott Cherry really gave us a lift tonight."

In 32 seasons the Associated Press has never once named Smith its Coach of the Year; that may be because it's altogether too worldly an award for the struggle he goes through each season. Even on the podium he couldn't stop coaching. He actually orchestrated the cutting down of the nets so that the seniors, of course, went first. Smith himself severed the last strand with a pair of gold scissors that had been engraved with UNC 1993 NATIONAL CHAMPIONS- a gift from a fan who had sent a similar pair in '82. When the players returned to the locker room, someone had already written on the chalkboard: CONGRATULATIONS! GREAT TEAM!! NO PRACTICE TOMORROW.

No wrinkle to insert. No weakness to work on. No detail to refine. How ever will Dean spend the day?