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NANCY ARMOUR
March Madness

Armour: Syracuse's pressure doesn't faze North Carolina

Nancy Armour
USA TODAY Sports

HOUSTON — If you want to take down North Carolina, you better come at the Tar Heels with more than tricks and traps.

And you sure better come at them with something they haven’t seen before.

North Carolina Tar Heels guard Marcus Paige cruises in for a layup.

Syracuse tried to stage yet another furious rally, hoping it could press its way into the national title game just as it did the Final Four. But the Tar Heels aren’t Gonzaga and they aren’t Syracuse, and Roy Williams didn’t forget all that institutional knowledge he’s built up over three decades on the flight from Chapel Hill to Houston.

Unlike Gonzaga and Virginia, which seemed to be seeing a full-court press for the first time last weekend, North Carolina knew exactly what was coming midway through the second half — had been anticipating it, actually. Countering Syracuse’s press with speedy, savvy and a couple of timely buckets from Marcus Paige, the Tar Heels reduced what could have been big trouble to little more than nuisance.

No. 1 seed North Carolina ends Syracuse's run 83-66

“I’ve been around long enough to play (Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim) when his teams pressed a lot, not just late-game scenarios like they have the past two weeks,” Williams said. “Every game we played Syracuse in my entire life, we’ve worked on press offense a couple days before. The other thing is we work on press offense every day.”

The roar that erupted after Trevor Cooney hit a three, stole the ball at the other end and scored on the fast-break dunk could be heard all the way back to the East Coast. Gonzaga and Virginia still have whiplash from how quickly their victories became losses once Syracuse started to press, and everyone wanted to see if the Orange could do it three games in a row.

But unlike those two teams, North Carolina can play at warp speed, too. You want to turn the last 10 minutes into a track meet? Lace up your shoes and let’s go.

“We expected them to press. That’s what we wanted them to do,” Brice Johnson said. “… That’s the way we want to play the game. If you look at the results, we got a bunch of layups out of that situation. We did a great job of just playing the way we know how to play.”

The flurry of turnovers Syracuse was hoping for never did come and neither did the stops. Instead, after Malachi Richardson made a three to cut North Carolina’s lead to 57-50, the closest the Orange had been since 2 minutes left in the first half, Paige dropped one of his own, followed shortly after by a Brice Johnson dunk.

And when Cooney followed Michael Gbinije’s layup with a steal, feeding Richardson for a layup to cut the lead back to 67-57, Paige was right there to drill another one.

Game over. Bring on Villanova.

“We needed our press to work, we needed our traps to work. We needed to get some steals,” Cooney said. “It's tough to turn North Carolina over. It's tough to get steals against them. We weren't able to make those plays.

“If we were able to make those plays, we would have got back into it, but we just weren't able to make those.”

NCAA tournament run bodes well for Syracuse, and Jim Boeheim, going forward

In fairness, there aren’t many teams that could slow up North Carolina with the way it’s playing these days.

The Tar Heels were the lone No. 1 seed to reach the Final Four, and they are determined to end the year the way they started. Now, in this year where chaos has been the norm, it seems improbable that the team that should win it all might actually do that.

But while we’ve all been delighting in the upsets and upheaval, North Carolina has been coolly ripping apart anyone who dares get in its way.

It’s won every tournament game by 14 points — usually more — and has never really been threatened. Whatever style or speed you throw at them, they have the depth and versatility to counter it.

There was some thought North Carolina might struggle to beat Syracuse, which played the Tar Heels well in its two regular-season meetings, for a third time. Some struggle. Four players — Johnson, Justin Jackson, Kennedy Meeks and Paige — finished in double figures, and Joel Berry had 10 assists.Syracuse was held to 41% shooting for the game.

“We’re capable of doing that every night,” Meeks said.

In other words, if you're going to go at the Tar Heels, you do it at your own risk.

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