super heavy artillery

Chapter 160 Opponents
UCLA's ability to reach the finals has indeed exceeded many people's expectations.In their view, Buddy Hield can completely resist An Luo's strong performance on the offensive end. After UCLA's strongest point is offset, the University of Oklahoma has an advantage.

But the game is like this, until the last moment, no one can tell.

Buddy Hield's slump has hurt Oklahoma a lot.I am used to his outbursts throughout the season, and if he loses the chain at such a critical moment, it will definitely have a big impact on his draft market.

Under the ebb and flow, An Luo has made a lot of profits.

After the game, the UCLA team did not leave the Ruiland Stadium immediately.Because next, there will be another semi-final on this venue.The East Division champions eliminated the University of Notre Dame's University of North Carolina Tar Heels, and faced the Midwest Division champions, staged a Jedi reversal and defeated the No. 10 seeded Syracuse University Orangemen of the University of Virginia, the favorite to win the championship.

It's about who UCLA competes for the championship one day later, and they won't miss it naturally.So after the press conference, Alford took the UCLA players to watch the game in the audience.

The two teams in this semi-final are teams that have played against each other before.In the ACC Civil War, the University of North Carolina beat Syracuse both home and away in the regular season.This time, they have the psychological advantage.But Syracuse University is also holding its breath. A weaker soldier will win, and after being suppressed for a long time, it can often burst out with very powerful strength.

Ryland Stadium is the home of the Texans football team. The vast space of the stadium allowed the average shooting percentage of the final four teams in the previous three times to only 30%. Until the semifinals that ended earlier, UCLA created a shooting percentage of 70%. , The controversy that large stadiums are not conducive to creating high shooting percentages has come to an end for the time being.

In this game, North Carolina wore a home white jersey, while Syracuse wore a traditional orange jersey.

North Carolina coach Roy Williams continued to field the starting lineup that has been used in the NCAA tournament this season, and Syracuse coach Jim Burnheim did not make changes to the starting lineup.After all, the two teams reached the final semi-finals all the way, and the lineup has already been running very well.

At the start of the game, Bryce Johnson of the University of North Carolina opened the scoring with a jumper.Syracuse University responded immediately, and Trevor Cooney scored a layup with an assist from his teammate to score for the Orange.

The offenses of the two sides came and went. North Carolina began to try three-pointers under the opponent's two-three defense. Unfortunately, it felt cold and missed all the first 8 shots. Trevor Cooney, the senior core of Syracuse University, led the team to play steadily. , Freshman supernova Richardson and substitute Tyler Lydon hit three-pointers respectively.

Then Syracuse's feel declined, and the University of North Carolina repeatedly hit the paint to score.However, Bryce Johnson, who created the North Carolina double-double record in a single season in the last game, took a break due to two early commits.Fortunately, Meeks, the other core of the Twin Towers, continued his tough play on the big stage and scored frequently inside.Then Syracuse began to make consecutive mistakes, and North Carolina seized the opportunity. After two consecutive mid-range shots by substitute senior Joel James, the team helped the team lead the opponent by 9 points.

Syracuse head coach Jim Burnheim immediately called a timeout. His team was having problems and some adjustments had to be made.

After returning, Syracuse's offense still didn't improve much, and its free throw percentage was particularly poor. North Carolina played a wave of 23:12 offensive.In the end, the University of North Carolina ended the first half with a 39:28 lead by 11 points.

Although North Carolina missed all 10 three-pointers in the first half, it maintained a high two-point shooting percentage.Kennedy Meeks contributed 9 points, but Bryce Johnson, who made two early fouls, also had 8 points and 4 rebounds.On Syracuse's side, senior core Michael Benaje contributed 8 points, and freshman supernova Malachy Richardson, who contributed to the super reversal before, had a slightly worse hand and scored 6 points.

In the second half, they changed sides and fought again. Marcus Pegg's shooting percentage was still not high, and he only made one of his 7 shots.And Trevor Cooney of Syracuse University came up with a three-pointer.Next, North Carolina's defensive strength began to gradually strengthen, and the Syracuse University players were a little uncomfortable, making consecutive mistakes and being intercepted.During this time, Bryce Johnson began to continuously use his height advantage to score unsolvable jumpers.The double-control also sorted out the offense in an orderly manner, and North Carolina shot 70% of the shots.

Seeing that the game was about to get out of control, Jim Burnheim called a timeout again.After returning, Trevor Cooney began to hit consecutive three-pointers, leading the Orange Army to start chasing points.North Carolina also began to make mistakes and was hit with a 7:0 offensive.Although then Marcus Pegg made a shot from outside the three-point line to stop the bleeding for the team.But Syracuse University took advantage of North Carolina's consecutive mistakes, and Malachy Richardson used his super-strong body to make a fast break layup, chasing the point difference to only 5 points.

Roy Williams, who was sitting firmly on the Diaoyutai, finally lost his stability this time.He called the first timeout of the game, then gave his players a hard-faced reprimand.Then take out the tactical board and start arranging tactics.

Back from the timeout, Marcus Pegg finally regained his touch.He first took advantage of the gap blocked by his teammates' screens, hit a three-pointer, and made a fast break to help Justin Jackson score a layup.

After returning from the last timeout, North Carolina firmly held the lead. At this time, they had a 44:22 lead in paint points and 43:30 ahead of Syracuse University in rebounding.Since then, Syracuse University has no momentum to catch up. The University of North Carolina has entered the finals for the first time since winning the championship in 2009, and it is also the tenth time in their history that they have entered the NCAA Tournament Finals.

In terms of statistics, four of the five starters at the University of North Carolina scored in double figures.Bryce Johnson failed to achieve his 24th double-double of the season, scoring 16 points and 9 rebounds. The heroes of this game, Kennedy Meeks and Justin Jackson scored 15 points and 16 points respectively. Joel Berry added 8 points and 10 assists, while Marcus Page added 13 points with three consecutive 22-pointers in the second half.For Syracuse University, Trevor Conney scored 8 points, including 4 of 17 three-pointers, while super freshman Malachy Richardson scored 5 points and [-] rebounds.It's a pity that the team's poor free throw percentage and field goal percentage did not allow them to stage a major reversal again.

An Luo felt that this game was much more exciting than the previous game between UCLA and Oklahoma City.Although both sides made many mistakes in the game, they were able to adjust quickly.This is a quality that a strong team must have.As the winner, the University of North Carolina is very strong, but An Luo feels that the opponent's perimeter defense is not enough to cause him too much trouble.

Unlike An Luo, what Alford saw was deeper.In this game, the University of North Carolina has scored more than 50 points in the paint!This is undoubtedly a severe test of UCLA's interior defense.

(End of this chapter)