UNCASVILLE, Conn. — Following a 10-point win against Richmond, the North Carolina men’s basketball team will take on defending national champion No. 3 Louisville in the title game of the Hall of Fame Tip-off Tournament at 1 p.m.
“They present challenges for you in every area,” coach Roy Williams said of Louisville. “They play extremely hard, they defend like crazy, they can score, they come at you. It’s a big-time team.
“Rick Pitino is one of our great coaches in our game. He’s got some very good players who did what he asks them to do. That’s the recipe for success, and he’s had it for a long time.”
The championship game pits two hall-of-fame coaches in Williams and Pitino against each other for the 11th meeting of the two programs. The Tar Heels last faced Louisville in 2008, coming away with an 83-73 victory in the East Regional final of the NCAA tournament.
The two programs are arguably the marquee teams at the tournament, but the path to the championship was not an easy one.
UNC suffered a three-point loss to Belmont in the second round of the tournament and escaped Richmond with a 10-point win.
The Tar Heels overcame a sloppy first-half performance against Richmond where they shot 39 percent from the field and connected on only one of six 3-point attempts.
Louisville handled Hofstra 97-69 and Hartford 87-48 before meeting a little more resistance against Fairfield in the tournament semifinal.
Neither Louisville nor Fairfield could find its shot in the opening minutes of the first half, and Fairfield held a 6-2 lead six and a half minutes into the game.
But once Louisville took a two-point lead four minutes later, the Cardinals never allowed Fairfield to regain the lead.
Louisville committed 14 turnovers against Fairfield, a far cry from its nation-leading average of six turnovers per game coming into Saturday.
Following Louisville’s 71-57 win, Pitino told reporters his Cardinals played the worst game of their undefeated season.
“We played our poorest game of the season,” Pitino said. “We didn’t play well at any phase of the game.”
Though Pitino said his team performed badly, there were still four Cardinals in double figures — North Carolina native Montrezl Harrell, Russ Smith, Chris Jones and Wayne Blackshear.
“They’re really, really a good basketball team,” Williams said. “They’re fun to watch. I don’t like to watch them when I play against them, but they’re really a fun team to watch. They went on a really good run last year to win a national championship.”
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