- North Carolina beat Baylor, the defending champion and the tournament’s first No. 1 seed to be eliminated. St. Peter’s, the No. 15 seed, advanced to the round of 16 as well, defeating Murray State.
- The men’s basketball team of the University of North Carolina was thrashed by Kentucky in December. Miami and Wake Forest were humiliated in January. In February, the team was humiliated at home by Duke and Pittsburgh and required overtime to defeat a terrible Syracuse.
- Then March arrived. On March 5, the Tar Heels travelled to Duke and ruined Mike Krzyzewski’s farewell game at Cameron Indoor Stadium. Then, in overtime on Saturday in Fort Worth, they defeated Baylor, the East region’s top seed and defending national champion, to progress to the N.C.A.A. tournament’s round of 16.
- Each spectacular triumph is of the calibre that may resurrect any squandered season. However, both? As Roy Williams, who stepped down as coach of North Carolina last year but was in attendance on Saturday, could say: “Daggum.”
- The phrase could also be applied to a good portion of Saturday’s tournament play. St. Peter’s — yep, the 15th-seeded Peacocks — moved to the round of 16 with a win against No. 7 seed Murray State, while Gonzaga, the field’s top overall seed, outlasted No. 9 seed Memphis.
- The eighth-seeded Tar Heels, who lost a 25-point lead with less than 11 minutes left in regulation before rallying, will face UCLA in Philadelphia on Friday.
- They — and any other team left in this year’s men’s tournament — may struggle to write a more suspenseful storey than their 93-86 drubbing of Baylor, the year’s first No. 1 seed to fall.
- The eighth-seeded Tar Heels, who lost a 25-point lead with less than 11 minutes left in regulation before rallying, will face UCLA in Philadelphia on Friday.
- They — and any other team left in this year’s men’s tournament — may struggle to write a more suspenseful storey than their 93-86 drubbing of Baylor, the year’s first No. 1 seed to fall.
- The eighth-seeded Tar Heels, who lost a 25-point lead with less than 11 minutes left in regulation before rallying, will face UCLA in Philadelphia on Friday.
- They — and any other team left in this year’s men’s tournament — may struggle to write a more suspenseful storey than their 93-86 drubbing of Baylor, the year’s first No. 1 seed to fall.
- Saturday’s game was, in many ways, a fitting culmination to North Carolina’s tumultuous first season under Hubert Davis, who replaced Williams.
- Following a 9-point defeat to Pittsburgh on Feb. 16, the Tar Heels have lost only once since, against Virginia Tech in the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament. Krzyzewski marvelled at them earlier this month, after his own team, then ranked fourth in the country, was destroyed by players like Bacot, a 6-foot-10 junior with the zeal of an Internal Revenue Service agent, and Brady Manek, a transfer from Oklahoma who entered Saturday’s game leading North Carolina in 3-pointers.
- “We were aware of this team’s potential heading into this season, and all we wanted to do was turn it around,” R.J. Davis said on Friday. “After the Pitt defeat, we realised it was not the way we wanted to play. As a result, I believe we just flipped the script and began competing. And everyone bought into their positions, which is essentially what we’ve been doing.”
- Baylor eventually succumbed to the grandeur of being a No. 1 seed, aided by a blatant foul. However, a team can only accomplish so much on an afternoon when it is down by 25 points.
