Redemption indeed as Tar Heels deliver on title

One Shining Moment, or three shining whistles?

If the screech is the soundtrack to North Carolina’s championship, Theo Pinson doesn’t care a bit.

After the confetti fell Monday night at University of Phoenix Stadium, the guard heaved the ball, scanned the crowd and ran to his father in the stands.

“I told you we’d do it!” he said. “I told you we would win it all!”

He father, Theo Sr., shook his head in awe.

“Sometimes you fall and then you get back up,” he said, eyes teary as he scanned the building. “And this is where you land.”

“This” is rarefied air, where a team secures a title after losing it a year earlier in heartbreaking fashion. The Tar Heels won their sixth championship with a 71-65 over Gonzaga, surviving a foul-marred competition by scoring five points in the final minutes.

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The game provided drama at the end but it was a slop-fest early on and didn’t match the quality of play of the two semifinals.

Twenty-seven fouls were called in the second half. And while many were legitimate, it also felt like a contest called too tightly. It certainly cost playing time for Gonzaga’s 7-footers, Przemek Karnowski and Zach Collins, the latter eventually fouling out.

Credit the Tar Heels with rebounding from a 2016 title loss to Villanova. Players insisted they had put the experience behind them, but also admitted to a season-long group text message group they called “redemption.”

Coach Roy Williams insisted he had moved on but also confessed to not watching the replay of Villanova’s game-winning shot the entire season.

It was redemption, in the the most gritty, hard-fought form.

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Only seven other teams have bounced back from title-game losses to capture it all. It’s a difficult feat. Lineups change, egos fracture, coaches struggle.

But Williams knew how to channel the heartbreak into success. And it was his heartbreak, too. Remember his televised postgame interview last year?

“I’ve been a head coach for 28 years and the worst thing is in a loss like this I feel so inadequate because I don’t know how to make it better,” he said.

He made it better.

It’s quite an accomplishment when you consider the challenges this program has faced.

Controversy never escapes big sporting events. Williams couldn’t get through a press conference this past week without being asked about academic fraud allegations directed at his university.

During a symposium at Arizona State’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law Monday, Bradley University president Gary Roberts said he thought it was “terrible” that North Carolina was allowed in the championship game for the second straight year and called its presence “unbelievably treasonous.”

No coach or player on this team has been accused of being involved, but with the depth of the fraud, debate ensues about how to punish a program for indiscretions of the past.

That wasn’t on the team’s mind Monday night.

“They wanted redemption,” Williams said. “But I put it in the locker room up on the board, one of the things we had to be tonight was tough enough, and I think this group was tough enough tonight.”

It was close much of the evening, but the final minute defined it.

With 22 seconds left and Gonzaga trailing by three, the Bulldogs’ Nigel Williams-Goss drove the lane but his shot was blocked. A subsequent dunk by Justin Jackson secured the victory.

It won’t go down as a classic.

North Carolina and Gonzaga shot 36 percent and 34 percent, respectively, with Jackson going 0 for 9 from 3-point range.

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Karnowski went 1 for 8 and even his shots inside lacked touch.

And those whistles. Everybody noticed.

LeBron James tweeted: “Man I can’t watch this anymore man! I would like to see the kids decide who wins the game! I mean Bruh!! Smh”

And Dwyane Wade: “Let these kids play. Put the whistles away.”

Gonzaga coach Mark Few, who has put together a dominating program in Spokane, struggled for perspective after the loss.

“I’m hoping it will settle in and we will feel better tomorrow and in the days to come,” he said. “It doesn’t feel that great right now for a couple reasons. You’re right there on the brink of a national championship.

“You want to give that to your team and your program. But at the same time, the other thing that just crushes you is that you don’t get to coach these guys ever again. That was going to happen whether we won or lost, so that’s the one that kind of really hurts. But I couldn’t be prouder.”

MORE: North Carolina beats Gonzaga: What we learned

He should be.

And so should the Valley for successful putting on another large-scale event.

This one infiltrated the Valley with good-old fashioned college rah-rah and introduced out-of-towners to life in the desert.

“I came for the basketball and left with a piece of jumping cholla in my leg,” said Jared Francis, 19, of Fayetteville, N.C. “I wouldn’t trade it for  anything.”

The Cardinals’ home was made over into a party room for 77,000, a 700-ton suspended scoreboard playing the role of disco ball.

Monday the party got a little sloppy. But it was still fun.

Reach Paola Boivin at [email protected] and on Twitter at Twitter.com/PaolaBoivin. Listen to her streaming live on “The Brad Cesmat Show” on sports360az.com every Monday at 10:30 a.m.