KlicKNet's NCAA March Madness Coverage: Final FOUR and National Championship

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NCAA March Madness

Final FOUR and National Championship

It's all over now, so let's dive into this past weekend's semifinals in the 2017 NCAA Men's Division I Tournament, otherwise known as the Final Four. They could not have picked a better venue to host the event than the University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Arizona and each team roused up to the occasion to become National Champions, but only one of those four teams would be able to raise that trophy up high and scratch their names on it.

The fun and games all started with the South Carolina Gamecocks who entered the Final Four for the first time in team history had a tough challenge on their hands when they took on the #1 Seeded in the West Gonzaga Bulldogs, the Gamecocks tired to catch up with the Bulldogs but game up a little short at the closing moments of the game. Gonzaga's Nigel Williams-Goss scored 23 points and gained 6 assists which led to the Bulldogs winning 77-73 over South Carolina's Gamecocks. After that, it was the Oregon Ducks and North Carolina Tar Heels' turn to take the court in Phoenix and North Carolina scored the same number of points as Gonzaga did with 77 points over the 76 points that Oregon scored. The Ducks had won the first NCAA National Championship back in the late 1930s and have gone back to the Final Four since then, and like South Carolina, they came up a few points short to win. North Carolina's Kennedy Meeks led his team to victory with 25 points and 14 rebounds, giving him a double-double.

So now, it all came down to last night's National Championship. Two #1 Seeded teams from the West and South respectively duked it out for College Basketball greatness. In the first half of the game, it was a back and forth situati, but Gonzaga pulled ahead to take 35-32 lead over North Carolina at halftime. For the entirely of it, Williams-Goss scored just 15 points, 9 rebounds and 6 assists, the most than anyone else on the Bulldogs team, but it wasn't good enough. Once the second half started, it was comeback mode for the Tar Heels who outscored their opponents 39-30 and at the closing moments of the game they squeezed in those final points to ensure they would become National Champions of 2017 with a 71-65 victory. The MVP for that game was Tar Heels player Joel Berry II who had 22 points and 6 assists as the North Carolina Tar Heels capped off what was an incredible run in the tournament.

Final Four
Last Saturday
West 1 Gonzaga 77, East 7 South Carolina 73
South 1 North Carolina 77, Midwest 3 Oregon 76