Three keys to Monday night's national championship game
HOUSTON — On the heels of a listless Final Four Saturday lacking drama or intrigue, here's a sliver of good news: A pair of dull, one-sided national semifinals at least produced a potentially compelling title game.
It will be North Carolina against Villanova in a battle between two teams that have been among college basketball's best all season and are unquestionably the sport's two hottest now.
The Tar Heels have won all five of their NCAA tournament games by 14 points or more and have only trailed in the second halves of those games for a total of 50 seconds. The Wildcats own an average NCAA tournament margin of victory of 24.2 points per game and are fresh off a 44-point demolition of Buddy Hield and Oklahoma on Saturday night.
How will North Carolina and Villanova match up? A look at three keys to Monday night's winner-take-all showdown:
1. Can Villanova handle North Carolina's formidable frontcourt?
North Carolina wing Justin Jackson had a succinct answer for why the Tar Heels have been able to be successful despite not shooting well from behind the arc.
“Because we have monsters inside," he said.
North Carolina indeed has thrived playing inside-out all season thanks to its formidable frontcourt. First-team All-American Brice Johnson has averaged 20 points and 9.6 rebounds so far in the NCAA tournament, Kennedy Meeks has emerged from his late-season slumber to provide a second low-post threat and reserve big men Isaiah Hicks and Joel James have both produced at key moments off the bench.
Tough as that quartet is on the low block, they're even better attacking the offensive glass. North Carolina is third nationally in offensive rebounding percentage and secures more than 40 percent of its missed shots, which could pose major problems for an undersized Villanova team that typically plays four perimeter players around center Daniel Ochefu.
Above all else, the biggest key for Villanova is Ochefu defending and rebounding without picking up silly fouls. Beyond that, how Jay Wright chooses to match up with the North Carolina frontcourt will be intriguing.
Does he put Ochefu on Meeks and hope Kris Jenkins can contain the taller, longer Johnson? Does he put Ochefu on Johnson, risk foul trouble and give Meeks a defender he can overpower on the low block? Or does he go bigger and play Darryl Reynolds alongside Ochefu for longer stretches than usual? None of those are ideal options for Villanova, but chances are the Wildcats try a little bit of everything to see what works best.
"Their length and their size definitely has to be respected," Ochefu said. "They scored 50 some points in the paint against the Syracuse zone. That’s pretty impressive."
2. Can North Carolina defend Villanova's quicker perimeter unit?
The same mismatches that could work in North Carolina's favor at one end of the floor also promise to be a disadvantage at the other.
Johnson will have to prove he's mobile enough to defend Jenkins out to the 3-point arc, where he is lethal on catch-and-shoot opportunities, especially via pick-and-pops. More than two-thirds of Jenkins' field goal attempts this season have been 3-pointers and he's shooting 15-for-31 from behind the arc during the NCAA tournament.
“I definitely think that could be an advantage for us," Ochefu said. "We always use Kris in situations where he has to bring the opposing four man or five man out, especially when we want to go small."
Villanova's guards will pose problems for North Carolina too with their ability to attack the rim and create for themselves or others. Josh Hart, fresh off a 10-for-12 shooting night in the national semifinals against Oklahoma, promises to be a difficult matchup.
It would be difficult to imagine North Carolina stopping Villanova earlier in the season, but the Tar Heels have come a long way defensively over the past four to six weeks. Johnson is doing a better job handling ball screens and contesting shots as a weak-side rim protector and the entire team is simply defending with more urgency and cohesiveness, though guard Marcus Paige still sees more room for improvement.
"Our defense has been good enough in the tournament, but it hasn’t been at the level it was in the ACC tournament," Paige said. "We have to clean up on the defensive end, and obviously not shoot 0-for-10 on 3-pointers [like against Syracuse]. If we get the shots we want and get back to the level we were on defense a couple of weeks ago, we should be all right."
3. Who will do a better job imposing their preferred tempo?
One of the biggest reasons Villanova shut down Buddy Hield on Monday night was that Oklahoma seldom got anything easy in transition. The Wildcats made 71 percent of their shots and it was hard for Hield to get any of the looks he typically gets before the defense is set because the Sooners were typically taking the ball out of the net rather than trying to run off long rebounds or turnovers.
Villanova can't count on shooting 71 percent from the field again Monday night in a building that has historically been unkind to shooters, but controlling tempo against North Carolina may be even more important than it was against Oklahoma. Opposing coaches often describe it as a jailbreak whenever the Tar Heels look to run after grabbing a defensive rebound.
The strategy against North Carolina is to make the Tar Heels score against a set defense, limit their paint touches and keep them off the offensive glass. None of that will be easy for Villanova, but it has to start with keeping the pace of play slow.
"They want to play more of a slow-paced game, and we always want to play up-tempo," North Carolina guard Joel Berry said. "We want to penetrate and beat the defense down before they can set up their defense.
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Jeff Eisenberg is the editor of The Dagger on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at daggerblog@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
