Gonzaga goes down with Nigel Williams-Goss on sprained ankle

Gonzaga rides Nigel Williams-Goss down the stretch against North Carolina despite sprained ankle

Even with Nigel Williams-Goss playing on a bad ankle in the final 90 seconds, Gonzaga coach Mark Few leaned on the junior guard to deliver in the clutch of the NCAA men’s basketball championship game Monday night.

It was Williams-Goss, a transfer from Washington and the Zags’ scoring leader (16.9 ppg) who put up five consecutive points for a 65-63 Gonzaga lead with 1:53 left at University of Phoenix Stadium. He fouled Justin Jackson seconds later, with Jackson completing a three-point play, then turned his ankle at 1:25, forcing Few to take a timeout.

“Shuffling through all our options at the end, I certainly wasn’t going to go to anybody to hit the last shot,” Few said.

Williams-Goss missed a 15-footer out of the timeout. North Carolina’s Theo Pinson rebounded, and the Tar Heels went on to a 71-65 win for their sixth national championship, depriving Gonzaga of a title in its first try.

“I sprained it pretty good,” Williams-Goss said. “It was the same ankle I hurt last game so it was still a little bit weak. Stepped on it wrong and rolled it. But my adrenaline was rushing. Nothing was going to stop me from finishing out this game.”

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Few said Williams-Goss, who had a team-high 15 points, “laid it all out on the line. He was the guy that obviously strapped us on his back especially down the stretch. We were having some real success on some isolations, and he was delivering. He had a great shot that kind of rolled in and out then that last one was tough.”

With North Carolina up 68-65, the Zags again called on the 6-foot-3 Williams-Goss, who was blocked in the lane by 6-10 Kennedy Meeks with 16 seconds left, leading to a breakout dunk by Jackson to ice North Carolina’s redemption for its 77-74 loss to Villanova in the 2016 championship game.

Gonzaga (37-2) led for 14:55 of the first half and almost three minutes more overall than North Carolina (33-7), but was in foul trouble throughout the second half. Seven-foot freshman Zach Collins fouled out with 5:03 left and 7-1 Przemek Karnowski and 6-9 Jonathan Williams were hampered with four fouls each.

“I was fouling too much and we couldn’t play our regular lineups like we usually do,” Collins said. “I’m just sad I couldn’t be out there to help them.”

The Zags refused to pin the loss on officiating, including a jump-ball call with 49.1 seconds that video replay showed perhaps should have instead been an out-of-bounds call in favor of Gonzaga. North Carolina led 66-65 at the time.

“I had no idea,” Few said when told of Meeks’ hand being out of bounds before the jump ball. “From my angle, it didn’t look like a situation where there was an out-of-bounds situation or else I would have called for a review. That’s tough to hear, but that’s just the way it goes.”

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Few said he had “no issue at all” with 22 fouls on his players, the same number called on North Carolina. “I thought the officials did a fabulous job, and I’m on the losing end. It’s just not an easy game to ref. We’re throwing the ball inside, they’re throwing it inside. I thought we navigated ourselves really well (given foul trouble) to get that thing down and take a lead with a minute or so to go. We just didn’t finish.”

An emotional Williams-Goss tried to find some perspective in the immediate aftermath.

“I don’t think any of us think we played our absolute best game, and that hurts,” he said. “But it doesn’t break you. It doesn’t kill you. You just gotta get better for next time.”