| #1 | North Carolina (34-4) | 83 |
| #1 | Connecticut (32-5) | 82 |
Detroit, MI - The NCAA Tournament Championship game between tradition-rich, one-seeds North Carolina (34-4) and UConn (32-5) matches its heavyweight fight hype with a one-point win featuring a last-second, game-winning shot. Add Ty Lawson to the conversation with Lorenzo Charles, Michael Jordan and Keith Smart as he leads UNC to an 83-82 victory.
Trailing 82-81 with four seconds remaining following a Jeff Adrien bank shot that put UConn up one, North Carolina head coach Roy Williams calls a timeout to setup the final play of the game. Junior point guard Ty Lawson takes the inbound pass and advances it up the court defended by A.J. Price. As Lawson crosses the three-point line where Stanley Robinson meets him for the double team, Wayne Ellington flashes to the top of the key and two Tar Heels go to the rim to pull defenders away. Lawson pulls up from 17 feet away and hits the jumper as time expires.
Championship Tar Heels. With the most talented roster top to bottom in college basketball over the last several years - at least since UNC's last national title in 2005 - and four potential NBA players - Tyler Hansbrough, Ty Lawson, Danny Green and Wayne Ellington - who came back to the team for this moment, the road may not have been easy, nor the games pretty, but North Carolina is back on top of the college basketball world.
Not too surprisingly, even though he missed the first game of the tournament, Ty Lawson wins the tournament's Most Outstanding Player honor averaging 22.2 points, 6.4 assists and just one turnover a game while shooting a ridiculous 62.2% from the field and leading North Carolina to five wins. In the championship game, Lawson 23 points on 9-of-11 shooting and has seven assists to just one turnover.
In total, an astounding nine players score in double-figures in the title game. Lawson is joined by Danny Green with 13, Tyler Hansbrough with 16 and Deon Thompson with 12 on North Carolina, and Jeff Adrien and A.J. Price with 17, Hasheem Thabeet with 15, Craig Austrie with 12 and Kemba Walker with 11.
While North Carolina will likely lose all but Tyler Zeller from the eight players who play in the championship, UConn may be a team to watch next season. The Huskies will lose Craig Austrie, A.J. Price, Jeff Adrien and likely Hasheem Thabeet, but Stanley Robinson, Kemba Walker Gavin Edwards and Donnell Beverly should join Jerome Dyson in returning for 2009-10 - assuming they are tournament eligible.
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