North Carolina won its fifth NCAA men’s basketball championship on Monday night, thoroughly defeating Michigan State 89-72 in front of the largest crowd to ever watch a college basketball game.
Ty Lawson led the Tar Heels with 21 points and set an NCAA tournament record with eight steals. Tyler Hansbrough scored 18 points and Wayne Ellington had 19 to help North Carolina win their second championship in five years and the second for coach Roy Williams.
North Carolina started fast against the Spartans, jumping out to an early 34-11 lead with 9:46 left in the first half. Michigan State proved to be their own worst enemy, turning the ball over 12 times in the first twenty minutes of play. The Spartans finished with 21 turnovers.
The Tar Heels (34-4) were up 55-34 at halftime, breaking a 42-year-old title-game record for biggest lead at the break and setting the mark for most points at the half.
In their march towards the title, North Carolina defeated all six tournament opponents by double digits, something that hasn’t happened since Duke did it in 2001.
Goran Suton led the Spartans with 17 points in his final game for Michigan State. Kalin Lucas, the Big Ten player of the year, added 14 points, most of which came after the game was out of hand.
Michigan State (31-7) pulled within 13 twice late in the second half, and the crowd of 72,922 – mostly pulling for the Spartans – tried to make some noise, but the game had long since been decided.
This contest was basically over just a few minutes after the player introductions. Ellington scored on a layup and a 3-pointer and Hansbrough sank a 14-foot jumper in the first 4:25 to put Carolina ahead 17-7. It never got closer.
The Spartans, meanwhile, were having trouble simply getting the ball in after Tar Heel buckets, turning it over that way twice in the first 6 minutes, part of a depressing day that didn’t do justice to the effort they put in to get here.
Williams joins Jim Calhoun, Billy Donovan and Mike Krzyzewski as the fourth active coach (13th overall) to win multiple titles.
Overall, North Carolina dominated every matchup on the floor in pretty much every way. The Tar Heels were a unanimous No. 1 in the preseason and became the first UNC team to start and finish at No. 1 since 1982.
