Associated Press
The UNC notebook …
DETROIT ó Wayne Ellington broke Jay Wright’s heart again.
First the kid from the Philadelphia suburbs with the smooth jump shot chose to play for North Carolina over Wright’s Villanova program.
Now he’s a big reason the Wildcats’ surprising Final Four run is over and the Tar Heels have moved on to play for the national championship most everyone expected them to win in the preseason.
Ellington scored 13 of his 20 points in the first half to help the Tar Heels beat the Wildcats 83-69 on Saturday night. His fast start was a big reason why the Tar Heels controlled the game from tip-off, helping them push out to a double-digit lead and keeping the Wildcats playing catch-up the rest of the night.
And while he had a relatively quiet second half, he came through with a pair of key 3-pointers that helped the Tar Heels (33-4) finally put the game away.
Ellington finished 7-for-14 from the floor and hit five 3-pointers, his second strong shooting performance of the season in cavernous Ford Field. In December, he had 17 points on 8-for-14 shooting in the 98-63 rout of Michigan State, the last team standing between the Tar Heels and their season-long pursuit of the title that got away last season.
It was exactly the type of performance that North Carolina coach Roy Williams had envisioned when he recruited the 6-foot-4 guard out of Wynnewood, Pa. Unfortunately, the same could be said of Wright ó who playfully said this week that Ellington’s decision to head south “broke my heart, man.”
This time, Ellington probably made him feel far worse.
He was a key piece of North Carolina’s overwhelming attack that was just far too much for the same defense that had locked down on North Carolina’s Atlantic Coast Conference rival Duke in the NCAA tournament’s round of 16. He was the perfect complement to Tyler Hansbrough inside, finding frequent open looks on kickouts from the interior or on Ty Lawson’s penetration from the point.
He made it look easy, too. He scored North Carolina’s first basket on a soft jumper in the first 90 seconds, then came through with a 3 from the right corner off a feed from Lawson for an 8-6 lead about 3 minutes in.
It turned out to be the go-ahead basket, with North Carolina leading comfortably for most of the game. Villanova got as close as five points early in the second half before the Tar Heels pushed the lead right back to double digits. Then, with the Wildcats hanging around, Ellington took a feed from Lawson in transition and knocked down a 3-pointer in front of the North Carolina bench to push the gap to 70-55 with 6:53 to play.
He struck again a few minutes later, making a 3 from the opposite side to give North Carolina its largest lead at 75-57 with 4:46 left.
OBAMA’S BRACKET
All you fans who mocked Barack Obama’s NCAA tournament bracket ó care to pick against the president now?
North Carolina, the team Obama chose to win the championship, surged into the title game with an 83-69 win over Villanova on Saturday night.
The Tar Heels’ victory moved Obama into the top third of the 5 million-plus people who entered ESPN.com’s pool.
Obama’s picks were looking shaky after the first three teams he forecast to reach the Final Four ó Louisville, Pittsburgh and Memphis ó lost in earlier rounds. Those misses dropped the president into the bottom half of the entries.
North Carolina is the favorite Monday night when it takes on Michigan State for the championship.