NCAA Tournament: National Title Preview

Villanova and North Carolina will face-off Monday night to decide who is the 2016 NCAA basketball champion.

One year of hard work all boils down to this. The tough practices, the early-morning workouts, the extra shots after practice. Players do all of that with the hopes of playing in this game tonight.

At 9:19 ET, Villanova and North Carolina will square off for the National Championship. Early predictions have the title crown going to North Carolina, but Villanova is playing just as well.

Let’s buckle up and enjoy the last bit of college basketball that we’ll have until next November. It’s going to be a dandy!

How they got here

North Carolina

North Carolina has yet to play any particularly close games in the NCAA Tournament this year, but at the same time, the highest-seeded team that they played was a five-seed, and that was Indiana.

They won their games by 16, 19, 15, 14, and 17, and are playing as well as they have all year on offense, scoring just under 130 points per 100 possessions in their five tournament games thus far. They’re shooting 52 percent from the floor, and 35 percent from the three-point line, which isn’t super impressive, but it’s better than the 28 percent they shot from three in conference play.

This offensive outburst has been led, of course, by Brice Johnson, who’s averaging 20 points per game in the tournament.

While they’re putting up great offensive numbers, it’s worth repeating that the highest seed they have played is a five-seed, and of those five teams, only two ranked in the top 50 of kenpom’s adjusted defensive efficiency (Syracuse and Providence). So they should have been putting up big offensive numbers.

Villanova

Villanova, on the other hand, has had a very impressive and unexpected run to the championship game. Teams are scoring just 93 points per 100 possessions against them in the Big Dance, and that includes two stellar performances against two of the better offensive teams in the nation in Kansas and Oklahoma.

As for their offense, the balanced attack that we saw in the regular season has continued to do work in the postseason. They have been led in scoring by four different guys in the tournament (Ryan Arcidiacono, Daniel Ochefu, Josh Hart, and Kris Jenkins).

Not to mention they’re coming off an absolute dismantling of Oklahoma in which they shot 71 percent from the floor. So they’re coming in hot.

Matchups to watch

The point guards

Both of these teams start two point guards: Marcus Paige and Joel Berry II for the Tar Heels, and Arcidiacono and Jalen Brunson for Nova.

If I had to guess, I’d say Paige and Arcidiacono will be matched up, and Berry and Brunson will be matched up. Both Arcidiacono and Paige are senior, four-year starters who didn’t quite put up the stats that many thought they would this year. However, they’re both playing well in the tournament.

Arcidiacono is averaging just under 16 points per game on 65 percent from the floor and 73 percent from three.

Paige, on the other hand, isn’t playing quite as well, but is averaging just under 14 points per game is shooting 37 percent from three.

Both of these guys are integral parts to their respective teams and you have to think that if one outplays the other, that team will have a major upper hand.

Josh Hart vs. Justin Jackson

While the point guard matchup is pretty even, this is the one spot where Villanova has their advantage. Hart is the Wildcats’ leading scorer, averaging over 15 points per game this year, and is putting up very similar numbers in the tournament.

Jackson does a little bit of everything for the Tar Heels, but if Roy Williams is smart, he should tell Jackson not to worry about his scoring output in this game, and only worry about expending his energy to guard Hart.

Jackson isn’t what I would call a lock-down defender. His arms are terrifyingly long, but has struggled at times with his lateral quickness, so much so that Paige has had to guard Malcolm Brogdon in many of their games against Virginia this year.

The frontcourts

The point guard matchup is even. Villanova has the advantage on the wing. North Carolina has a major advantage up front.

Ochefu will likely matchup with Johnson. Ochefu is a nice player. He’s a great shot-blocker capable of scoring in the post a few times a game, and is by far Nova’s best rebounder. But Johnson is one of the best players in the country, and Ochefu hasn’t faced anyone nearly as good as Johnson this year.

If Ochefu is on Johnson, that leaves the 6’6″, 240lb Jenkins to guard the 6’9″. 290lb Kennedy Meeks, which figures to be a major advantage for North Carolina. But, as they say, if one team has a mismatch, so does the other.

While Meeks should be able to take Jenkins inside, Jenkins should be able to drive by Meeks anytime he wants. Plus, Jenkins is a great three-point shooter, shooting over six per game. This means that Meeks will be out on the perimeter guarding Jenkins and not in the paint where he normally affects the opponents shots at the rim.

North Carolina is never going to play small. Three of their best players in Johnson, Meeks, and Isaiah Hicks are big men. Villanova, however, can match some of the Heels’ size inside by playing big with Darryl Reynolds.

So it should be extremely interesting to see what Jay Wright does here. Does he decide to match North Carolina’s size and bench Jenkins? Or does he decide to try to take advantage of Meeks on offense? Or maybe we’ll see Villanova play a zone. Stay tuned.

Prediction

I’ve thought that North Carolina has been the second-best team in the country, behind Kansas, for almost the entire season, so I can’t really back off that now. At the same time, Nova has impressed me so much more with the way they are playing in this tournament, and Wright has pushed all the right buttons, so I’m almost certain he has something up his sleeve to solve North Carolina’s frontcourt advantage.

But ultimately, I think Brice Johnson will be a little bit too much. If Ochefu gets in any sort of foul trouble, the Wildcats will be in major trouble. And Johnson is one of the best in the country at drawing fouls inside.

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North Carolina 78, Villanova 71

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