West Region Final
UCLA 76, Xavier 57
Freshman Kevin Love had 19 points and 10 rebounds on Saturday (AP Photo).
PHOENIX (AP)
? UCLA became the first team to advance to next weekend's Final Four with a convincing 76-57 victory against Xavier. The Bruins earned their third consecutive trip to the national semifinals and NCAA-record 18th overall.
Freshman Kevin Love scored 19 points, had 10 rebounds and was picked as the most outstanding player of the West Regional. Behind him, UCLA (35-3) rediscovered the game that had made them a No. 1 seed.
It's the Bruins' longest string of Final Four appearances since they closed the John Wooden era with nine straight trips and added a 10th consecutive trip in 1976 under his successor, Gene Bartow.
UCLA plays the Memphis/Texas winner in the national semifinals at the Alamodome on Saturday, April 5.
At times on Saturday, Ben Howland's Bruins looked every bit as dominant as Wooden's finer squads, annihilating a proud Xavier (30-7) team that had set a school record for victories.
The knock on UCLA is that it often coasts with a big lead. Not this time.
Leading by nine at halftime, the Bruins snuffed out third-seeded Xavier's comeback hopes with a 14-0 run early in the second half.
The rest of the game was one long advertisement for the powder blue and gold, with a partisan crowd rocking U.S. Airways Center with chants of "U-C-L-A!"
Luc Richard Mbah a Moute had 13 points and 13 rebounds and Darren Collison added 19 points for UCLA, which shot 53.8 percent from the floor.
Derrick Brown had 13 points for Xavier.
This matched Xavier's deepest foray into the NCAA brackets. The Musketeers had reached the regional final once before, in 2004.
UCLA came in with a 13-game winning streak, but the Bruins had not been dominant, especially in their last two tourney games. They sweated out a two-point victory over No. 9-seeded Texas A&M in the second round and nearly blew a 21-point lead against 12th-seeded Western Kentucky in the third.
After the too-tight victory over the Hilltoppers, Love called the Bruins' play "unacceptable."
It wasn't much better early on against Xavier. After turning the ball over a season-high 19 times in the third round, the Bruins had 10 turnovers in the first half on Saturday.
But the Musketeers only scored two points off those turnovers - and it cost them when UCLA finally settled down.
Leading 24-20, the Bruins closed the first half on a 9-4 run. The leader of the charge was Mbah a Moute, who has been slowed by a sprained ankle.
Mbah a Moute scored five straight points, all of them as a result of some gritty work on the offensive boards. Then Collison dribbled down the clock and hit a jumper over Stanley Burrell, the Atlantic 10's Defensive Player of the Year, to send the Bruins into the dressing room with a 33-24 lead.
The biggest bucket may have come when Love pulled down an offensive rebound on a missed free throw, then fired the ball to Collison loitering beyond the arc. Collison hit the 3-pointer and UCLA led 43-28.
A few minutes later, Love buried a 3-pointer and the Bruins led by 20.
East Region Final
North Carolina 83, Louisville 73
| Junior Tyler Hansbrough had 28 points and 13 rebounds on Saturday night (AP Photo). |
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) ? This time, North Carolina got to celebrate instead of heading to the locker room to wait for next year. Tyler Hansbrough and his top-seeded Tar Heels just wouldn't be denied a trip to the Final Four again.
Hansbrough had 28 points and 13 rebounds Saturday night to help the Tar Heels hold off Louisville 83-73 in the East Regional final, sending them to the national semifinals for the first time since winning the championship in 2005 and the 17th time in school history.
The Tar Heels (36-2) advanced to play the Kansas/Davidson winner next Saturday in the national semifinals at the Alamodome in San Antonio.
Ty Lawson added 11 points ? including a key 3-pointer with about 5 minutes left ? for North Carolina. The Tar Heels blew a 12-point halftime lead, then broke away from a tie at 59 for the 10-point victory.
It was a reversal of last year's regional final in which the Tar Heels fell apart down the stretch, wasted a double-digit lead in the second half and lost to Georgetown in overtime.
Last year, nobody could hit a shot when the Tar Heels needed one most against the Hoyas in a loss that had stayed with them all season. But this time, Hansbrough and Lawson came through with the three biggest shots of the season to maintain North Carolina's tenuous second-half lead.
Battling against David Padgett in physical contest inside, Hansbrough finished 12-for-17 from the floor in 38 minutes. Meanwhile, Lawson had nine assists while operating as a one-man press break against the third-seeded Cardinals (27-9) and their full-court pressure all night.
Jerry Smith scored 17 points to lead Louisville, which shot 53 percent and gave the Tar Heels all they could handle in front of a blue-clad crowd. But ultimately, North Carolina proved it had learned the lessons from last year.
First, with the Tar Heels clinging to a 68-64 lead, Lawson came around the baseline and knocked down a 3 from the corner in front of his bench that pushed the margin to seven. Then, after a basket from Earl Clark inside, Hansbrough knocked down a straightaway jumper over the 6-foot-11 Padgett to make it 73-66 with 2:27 to play.
Hansbrough essentially closed the door on Louisville on the next possession. The 6-9 junior got the ball on the left wing with the shot clock winding down, then pump-faked to get Clark up in the air and step in for another jumper over Padgett. The ball swished cleanly through while Hansbrough was knocked to the ground, pushing the lead to 75-66 with 1:33 left.
The Tar Heels went 8-for-8 at the foul line to seal it in the final minute.