ANAHEIM, Calif. � Turns out it wasn't just Arizona's Derrick Williams against Connecticut's Kemba Walker Saturday for a berth in the Final Four.
By Kevork Djansezian, Getty Images
Kemba Walker and the Connecticut Huskies celebrate with the West Regional championship trophy after they beat Arizona in Anaheim, Calif., to earn a trip to the Final Four.
By Kevork Djansezian, Getty Images
Kemba Walker and the Connecticut Huskies celebrate with the West Regional championship trophy after they beat Arizona in Anaheim, Calif., to earn a trip to the Final Four.
It was Williams against Walker and Jeremy Lamb.
That made all the difference as Walker, the 6-1 junior guard who is arguably the best player left in the NCAA tournament, and Lamb, the 6-5 freshman swingman who is arguably the best freshman left in the tournament, led UConn to a 65-63 victory.
Walker, who came into the game coming off a 36-point game against San Diego State Thursday, scored 20, the same as Arizona's Williams.
The X factor? Lamb, who scored 19 and, as he did against San Diego State, made crucial big plays when the Huskies needed them most.
"He was big-time today," Walker said of Lamb. "Honestly, we needed everything that he did for us. He did everything perfect. He scored the basketball. He got big stops. He grew up today."
-
PREVIEWS: Breaking down Sunday's matchups
-
PHOTOS: Top shots from the Big Dance
-
BRACKET: The road to the Final Four
-
BOX SCORE: Connecticut 65, Arizona 63
Walker, Lamb and 68-year-old coach Jim Calhoun are now 30-9 this season and will move on to the Final Four in Houston to try to win UConn's third national title.
Walker gave the Huskies a 65-60 lead with his last basket, a fallaway 17-foot jumper over Williams with 1:15 left.
Arizona (30-8), which had led with six minutes left, got back within two points when Jamelle Horne knocked down a three-pointer with 1:02 left.
Neither team scored again. On the last possession, Williams and Horne missed open three-pointers that would have given Arizona a one-point lead.
Williams, who came into the game hitting a remarkable 60.3% of his three-point shots but has had lively discussions with Arizona coach Sean Miller about whether he should be sticking more to his inside game (Miller's preference), missed five of his six three-point shots Saturday, including all five he took in the second half.
"When I'm open, I'm going to shoot the three," Williams said.
Said Miller: "You can't have it both ways. He's won about 15 games and to have him shoot that shot, which I don't know if it was a great one, but for him with the ball in his hands from three in that situation is something we all can live with."
Said Calhoun: "We were happy when Williams moved outside."
Either way the game went at the end, the result would have been a remarkable turnaround. Both UConn and Arizona, longtime tournament blue bloods who lost their way last season and failed to make the March Madness field, were not expected to be major contenders when the season began.
Even when it ended ? the regular season, anyway ? UConn was not considered much of a threat. The Huskies lost four of their last five Big East Conference games and finished 9-9 in league play, tied for ninth.
But then they won five games in five days to win the Big East tournament. On Saturday, they won their ninth game in 19 days.
Now they're the last of 11 Big East teams in the tournament to still be standing.
"Day after day after day, we have found answers to win," Calhoun said. "We're good and we've gotten better. Obviously, Jeremy got better and Kemba became the best player in the country in my opinion. Alex (Oriakhi) is a rock inside.
"I think the approach we've taken in this tournament is to hell with it, let's just play basketball."
The game went back and forth, then the key sequence came after Arizona had taken a 55-52 lead with just over six minutes left. UConn answered by scoring 10 unanswered points to go up 62-55, six of those points scored by Lamb, who hit two baseline floaters and then turned a stolen pass into a breakaway dunk.
"We ran a great play where I come off two screens and earlier in the game we ran the same play and I had the ball and I dished it and they didn't finish and Kemba said, 'Shoot that floater,'" Lamb said. "When I got it then, I thought about what he said and I was about to dish it, but I shot the floater and I was able to knock it down and then we ran the same play again."
Lamb, from Norcross, Ga., was not among the highest-rated prospects in the country last year.
He scored in double figures in only one of his first six games this season. His scoring average slowly rose into double figures, and is now 11.1.
But he's making a huge name for himself in the tournament, averaging 18.3 points in four games, and 21.6 in the two games in Anaheim.
Does he realize his stardom yet?
"I haven't really thought about it," Lamb said. "I just like to go out there and play. I don't like to think about where we're playing and how big the stage is. Right now, I'm just having fun playing basketball."
Posted | Updated
No comments:
Post a Comment