Of course, there was no way it was going to be easy. North Carolina did it, though, and now it’s time to stop asking Roy Williams that doggone question.Sean May had 26 points, and the Tar Heels didn’t allow a basket over the final, excruciating 2 1/2 minutes Monday night to defeat Illinois 75-70, a win that finally gave Williams, the 17-year coaching veteran, the national championship that was missing from his otherwise stellar resume.
“I’m speechless,” Williams said. “I usually talk my rear end off, but right now I’m speechless.”
Freshman Marvin Williams had a tip-in with 1:26 left, Raymond Felton made three free throws down the stretch, and the Tar Heels (33-4) won their first title since 1993, back when Dean Smith was coaching and Williams was at Kansas, in the middle of his Final Four futility.
“He is the greatest coach,” Felton said. “If he retired tomorrow, I would vote for him for the Hall of Fame. He told us he would bring us a championship, and we did it as a team.”
Led by May’s 10-for-11 shooting, Carolina took a 65-55 lead with 8:51 left, and it looked like Williams would win his 41st tournament game and first championship going away. But Illinois (37-2) never quit.
Forward Jack Ingram hit a pair of outside jumpers, and Dee Brown scored six points as part of a 10-0 run that tied the game at 65 with 5 1/2 minutes left to set up a fantastic finish.
When it was over after Felton had made his last two free throws, after May had cradled his 10th and final rebound, Williams took off his glasses and started looking for people to hug.
A few moments later, he was crying, much like he has at the end of every season though no ending has been as sweet as this one.
“I’m just so happy for myself, my family,” Williams said. “These seniors … what they’ve been through for four years. They took me for a heck of a ride.”
Luther Head led Illinois with 21 points. He had a wide-open look at a 3-pointer that would have tied the game with 17 seconds left, but it bounded off and coach Bruce Weber’s magical ride with the Illini wound up one win short of the real fairytale ending he hoped for.
His opponent, Williams, left Kansas to take over the Tar Heels two years ago, after the program Dean Smith built had faltered and fallen to 8-20. Williams took a ton of heat for leaving Kansas after losing in the title game in 2003-his fourth close call at the Final Four.
He defended the move, saying coming back to his alma mater had always been his dream. Then, this week, he dealt with a more familiar question: Did he need to win a title to call his career a success?
He told the story of Smith insisting he was no better a coach after he finally won one in 1982, but Williams conceded that answering that “same doggone question” did get a little annoying at times.
“For coach to be able to say that the first team to get him a championship was the 2005 team is an honor,” May said. “He’ll win a few more before he’s done.
