Maye hits late jumper to lift North Carolina to Final Four

By TERESA M. WALKER
Associated Press

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) Roy Williams went all "Gone With the Wind" when a player asked about his North Carolina Tar Heels making the last shot Sunday to edge Kentucky to the Final Four.

And the coincidence that the Tar Heels have been on the other end of similar shots recently, like in the 2016 national championship and a wild December game against the Wildcats.

"Frankly, my dear, I don't give a ...," Williams said with a smile, quoting Clark Gable's famed line as Rhett Butler. "I didn't care what he was talking about."

Luke Maye hit a jumper with 0.3 seconds left and top-seeded North Carolina held off Kentucky 75-73 to earn the Tar Heels' second straight trip to the Final Four, winning a showdown of college basketball's elite in the South Regional.

The national semifinal will be the 20th for North Carolina, where the Tar Heels (31-7) will play Midwest champ Oregon on Saturday in Glendale, Arizona.

North Carolina took control with 12 straight points over the final 5 minutes, a run similar to what it used a week ago to beat Arkansas. The Tar Heels finished this game with a 16-9 run. Kentucky's freshmen De'Aaron Fox hit a 3 and Malik Monk quickly added two more, one with 7.2 seconds left and defenders in his face to tie the game at 73.

"I probably should have called time out," Kentucky coach John Calipari said. "It entered my mind, but they got that son of a B in so quick, I couldn't get to anybody to do it. I needed to stop that right there."

Theo Pinson drove enough toward the basket to pick off Maye's defender, then passed back to Maye. The sophomore from Huntersville, North Carolina, knocked it down for the win with his feet on the 3-point line.

"I just kind of stepped back, and he gave me the ball and I just shot it, and luckily it went in," Maye said. "It was a great feeling."

Maye finished with a career-high 17 points off the bench for North Carolina. Justin Jackson scored 19 points, and Joel Berry II added 11 on a sprained left ankle.

The Wildcats had one last chance, but Derek Willis' inbounds pass went out of bounds on the far end.

Kentucky (32-6) will miss out on the Final Four for the second straight year. Willis and sophomore Isaac Humphries left the court with towels over their heads, and Fox was the last to leave.

The Wildcats had hoped their talented freshmen would carry them. Bam Adebayo and Fox each had 13 points, and Monk, the Southeastern Conference player of the year, finished with 12. Fox and Adebayo wept side by side in the locker room.

"That shot is just playing back and forth in my head," Fox said. "It's going to be difficult to get over."

Never before had the NCAA Tournament pitted powerhouse programs that have so dominated March. This South final featured Kentucky with the most tournament wins all-time with 124 and North Carolina just behind with 120 (now 121).

This was just the fourth time these blue bloods have met in a regional final. The result was much the same as the others, with North Carolina now 3-1 against Kentucky as the Tar Heels avenged a 103-100 loss on Dec. 17 in Las Vegas.

Kentucky led for less than 4 minutes in a game North Carolina had a big edge on the boards (44-34) and inside, where the Tar Heels outscored the Wildcats 34-26.

Officials didn't help the flow of this game calling fouls left and right, though Kentucky took the brunt with its star trio of freshmen all picking up two fouls each in the half. Fox played only 8 minutes of the first half after picking up his second foul with 12:23 left. Adebayo easily was the most frustrated as he missed all five shots in the half with Kennedy Meeks swatting away one of his dunk attempts.

North Carolina led by as much as 9 a couple times before both teams went into shooting slumps. The Tar Heels led 38-33 at halftime.

BIG PICTURE

Kentucky: Nobody has played in more Elite Eights than the Wildcats with this their 33rd overall and sixth under Calipari. Kentucky now is 4-2 with Calipari in regional finals. Fox and Monk combined for 71 points in the December win over North Carolina led by Monk's 47. This time, they combined for 25.

North Carolina: Memphis and the South Regional have been very good to the Tar Heels. This is the second straight time the Tar Heels have been the region's top seed and advanced to the Final Four through Memphis, and now they can only hope to replicate their success of 2009 when they won the program's fifth national title. Williams improved to 9-4 in regional finals overall and 5-3 at North Carolina.

BERRY'S ANKLES

Williams said Berry aggravated the right ankle he sprained in the opening weekend of the tournament in practice Saturday. Berry then rolled his left ankle in the opening 5 minutes. The junior guard played 33 minutes.

UP NEXT

North Carolina plays Oregon in the national semifinal. Kentucky prepares for another batch of freshmen heading to the NBA.

Elites meet in South final between Kentucky, North Carolina

Stats, LLC

MEMPHIS, Tenn. -- After avenging a December loss to UCLA on Friday night in the South Regional semifinals at FedEx Forum, Kentucky tries to keep North Carolina from evening the score with a Final Four berth on the line.

Two of the sport's bluebloods meet Sunday in a rematch of perhaps the game of the regular season, a 103-100 Wildcats win on Dec. 17 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Freshman guard Malik Monk wowed the sellout crowd of more than 19,000 with 47 points on 28 shots, canning eight 3-pointers.

Can Monk possibly improve on that epic effort?

"They will play me even tighter," he said, "so (De'Aaron) Fox will have his way. Or anyone else will have their way."

Fox sure had his way in Kentucky's 86-75 elimination of UCLA on Friday night, pumping in a career-high 39 points on just 20 shots as he continually attacked the bucket. Monk perked up after a slow start to add 21 points, setting up a matchup of the region's top two seeds.

North Carolina (30-7) disposed of Butler 92-80 in Friday night's opener, leading by double figures for the final 24 minutes and getting a combined 50 points from Joel Berry and Justin Jackson.

Berry appeared to be over an ankle injury that hampered him in the Tar Heels' previous game against Arkansas, tallying 26 points, while the smooth Jackson worked the Bulldogs over for 24 points, five rebounds and five assists.

Jackson had a great matchup early, going against the 6-3 Kethan Savage, who tried hard but simply wasn't able to keep Jackson from getting whatever shot he wanted.

"I saw they had a smaller defender on me and my teammates were finding me," Jackson said. "They were setting screens and they were just kind of late off those screens. I just kind of felt like I was moving freely, and my teammates were finding me. It was just up to me to step up and knock in the shots."

Jackson also enjoyed a huge game against Kentucky, firing in 34 points on 17 shots from the field. Berry added 23 points and three other teammates hit for double figures as North Carolina shot 53.3 percent from the field while committing only nine turnovers.

But it wasn't nearly enough to outdo Monk and Fox. Lost in Monk's display of shotmaking was Fox's 24 points and 10 assists, which helped the Wildcats notch the most entertaining of their 31 wins this season.

"We didn't play very well on the defensive end and Malik lit us up for 47," Tar Heels coach Roy Williams said of that game.

North Carolina has exerted itself with more consistency without the ball during the NCAA Tournament, holding Arkansas scoreless down the stretch in a 72-65 second-round win and limiting Butler to 43 percent shooting from the floor on Friday night while controlling the boards 38-26.

Kentucky also won in part because of defense Friday night, holding UCLA 15 points below its season average and forcing 13 turnovers from a team that had only nine in its first two NCAA Tournament games.

"The key to that was basically try to get a hand up and don't break down defensively," guard Dominique Hawkins said.

Elite 8-bound: Kentucky beats UCLA 86-75 in South semifinal

By TERESA M. WALKER
AP Sports Writer

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) – De'Aaron Fox credits some sticky Kentucky defense for the Wildcats' latest berth in a regional final.

Coach John Calipari begs to differ.

He points at Fox, the freshman guard who outplayed UCLA phenom Lonzo Ball with one of the best scoring nights in Kentucky's vaunted NCAA Tournament history.

Fox scored a career-high 39 points as Kentucky beat UCLA 86-75 Friday night in a showdown between two of college basketball's goliaths for a spot in the South Regional final.

"All I did at halftime was say: `Guys. Are you watching this game?' and they said yeah,'" Calipari said. "I said; `Ok good. You know we are playing through De'Aaron Fox. The rest of you take a back seat and play off of him.'"

Fox not only turned in the best NCAA scoring performance since Tayshaun Prince had 41 against Tulsa in 2002, it was the best by a freshman in tournament history.

"I scored like the first 8 points of the game, and after that I was like you know it's going to be a good night for me," Fox said.

The only No. 2 seed to advance to the Elite Eight, the Wildcats (32-5) won their 14th straight game. Now the NCAA's winningest program will play another of basketball's titans Sunday in top-seeded North Carolina, a 92-80 winner over Butler earlier Friday, with a trip to yet another Final Four on the line.

The third-seeded Bruins (31-5) still have the most national titles. Yet they leave their third Sweet 16 under coach Steve Alford short of the Elite Eight.

"We just got beat by a very good team that played very, very well tonight," Alford said.

Fans lustily booed Calipari in his first game in Memphis since leaving in April 2009 for the Wildcats . Calipari's latest crop of talented freshmen put Kentucky into a regional final for the sixth time in seven years.

Malik Monk scored 21 points for Kentucky, and Dominique Hawkins added 11.

This was the fourth time these powerhouses have met in the past three seasons, and UCLA upset then-No. 1 Kentucky in Rupp Arena with a 97-92 win on Dec. 3.

Fox didn't play his best in that game, taking 20 shots to get 20 points. That wasn't a problem with Kentucky fans making the FedExForum as comfortable as Lexington. Fox scored the first eight points for Kentucky and was all over the court forcing turnovers or diving to the floor to force a jump ball.

He outplayed Ball, who finished with 10 points on 4 of 10 shooting before announcing he had played his final game for UCLA. Ball handed out eight assists but also had four turnovers.

Freshman TJ Leaf and Isaac Hamilton each had 17 points for UCLA.

Kentucky shut down the nation's top scoring team, holding UCLA well below its average of 90.2 points a game and just a point off its season-low.

"We really picked it up defensively," Fox said. "That's why we won. Not because of our scoring. That team averages like 90 points a game, and we held them to ... 15 less than their average."

Maybe it was nerves or so many freshmen, but Kentucky led 36-33 at halftime after a first half that wasn't close to the fast-paced pace expected.

By the second half, the Wildcats at least were running up and down the court.

Monk also started scoring. The Southeastern Conference player of the year had only seven points in the first half. He hit four of his first five shots, including a pair of 3s, within the first five minutes of the second. He scored off the fast break, and his second 3 with 15:52 gave Kentucky a 50-44 lead.

Thomas Welsh hit a short jumper, then Bryce Alford hit a 3 to pull UCLA within 50-49. That was as close as the Bruins would get as Kentucky pushed its lead to as much as 14 in the final couple minutes.

BIG PICTURE

UCLA: Six different Bruins averaged in double figures during the season, and four got there. But Welsh fouled out with 5:58 left. The Bruins turned the ball over 13 times, and Kentucky outscored UCLA 14-2 off the mistakes.

Kentucky: Wildcats won despite not getting much from another freshman, Bam Adebayo. The 6-foot-10 forward had been averaging a double-double during Kentucky's winning streak, but he finally scored his lone bucket off a dunk with 3:17 left.

WHERE FOX RANKS

Dan Issel's 44 points against Notre Dame in the 1970 Sweet 16 still reigns supreme in Kentucky's record books. Prince is tied for second with Jack Givens who scored 41 against Duke in the 1978 finals. Then there's Fox who was 13 of 20 overall and hit 13 of 15 at the free throw line. Both his 13 field goals and 13 made free throws were career-highs. He missed his lone 3-point attempt. Fox also handed out four assists and had two steals with only one turnover.

NOT BACK HOME AGAIN TO INDIANA

Asked again about Indiana's coaching opening, Alford insisted he is staying at UCLA and loves Los Angeles. The former Indiana star ticked off how both sons have graduated from UCLA, he has the No. 2 recruiting class coming in and a new practice facility opening soon.

"I'm very, very happy where I'm at, and hopefully that'll continue," Alford said.

UP NEXT

Playing top-seeded North Carolina in the regional final Sunday.

Northern Kentucky-Kentucky Preview

Stats, LLC

INDIANAPOLIS — To say the least, South Regional No. 2 seed and Southeastern Conference champion Kentucky is in its happy place.

The Wildcats (29-5), who have an impressive 11-game winning streak entering Friday night’s opening-round game against No. 15 seed Northern Kentucky (24-10) in Bankers Life Fieldhouse, like playing in Indianapolis and certainly like their current performance, including winning the SEC tournament on Sunday, beating Arkansas in the finale.

Kentucky has won the NCAA Tournament eight times, has advanced to the Final Four 17 times and is making its 56th trip to the NCAA tourney.

Led by freshmen Malik Monk (20.5 points), De’Aaron Fox (16.1) and Edrice Adebayo (13.2), Kentucky also features the nation’s ninth-best defense.

All of these facts make coach John Calipari a happy man.

“I know our little corner of the world is Northern Kentucky, who has had a terrific year,” Calipari said. “I love playing in Indy. The greatest thing is our fans can get there, and they’ve probably already scooped up a ton of tickets. I kind of like it.”

Senior forward Derek Willis likes the way Kentucky is playing heading into the NCAA tournament.

“I think we have been playing our best basketball right now,” Willis said. “I think our whole team is collectively starting to come together. I think we are starting to hit an incline, starting to peak at the right moment. We can take it as far as we want to go.”

Northern Kentucky, which won the Horizon League tournament in its first year of eligibility to qualify for the NCAA tournament, realizes the task it faces but is excited.

Drew McDonald (16.9 points and 7.6 rebounds), Lavone Holland II (12.9 points and 4.9 assists) and Carson Williams (10.4 points and 5.8 rebounds) helped the Norse post their first winning season since 2011-2012 and posted the program’s most victories since 2008.

Northern Kentucky has won six straight and 10 of 11, beating Wright State, Youngstown State and Milwaukee to win the conference tournament and secure the NCAA bid.

The Norse led the Horizon League in 3-pointers made per game with 8.7.

“We will be prepared to compete,” second-year Norse coach John Brannen said of playing Kentucky.

For senior Cole Murray, who is from Delphi, Ind., it doesn’t get much better than having an opportunity to face the eight-time NCAA champions.

“Our mindset is going to be the same as going in against any other team we have played this year,” Murray said. “We will do the same things we have done all year to be successful. Our coaches will give us a great game plan against Kentucky, and we will do the best we can to execute it and go show what we’ve got.”

The winner of the Kentucky-Northern Kentucky game will advance to Sunday’s second round and will play the winner of No. 7 seed Dayton and No. 10 seed Wichita State.