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Saturday, March 31
Final battle features top guards
Associated Press
MINNEAPOLIS – It will be Arizona's lightning quick Wildcats
against the resilient Duke Blue Devils in Monday night's NCAA
championship game.
Arizona used a big second half and a fierce zone defense to shut
down defending national champion Michigan State 80-61 in the first
semifinal Saturday night. Duke overcame a 22-point first-half
deficit and advanced with a 95-84 victory over Maryland in a battle
of Atlantic Coast Conference rivals.
The championship game matches coaches Lute Olson of Arizona and
Mike Krzyzewski of Duke, both finalists this year for the
basketball Hall of Fame. Both have taken their schools to this
championship before, Olson in 1997 and Krzyzewski in 1991 and 1992,
the last repeat champions.
After beating Illinois and Michigan State, Arizona will be after
its third No. 1 seed against Duke. The only other time a team has
beaten three top-seeded schools was Arizona in 1977. Duke is
looking for its third victory over a Pacific-10 team after knocking
off UCLA and Southern California to reach Minneapolis.
The championship game matches a pair of outstanding sophomore
guards – Duke's Jason Williams and Arizona's Jason Gardner.
Williams scored 23 points and hit the 3-pointer that put Duke ahead
to stay with 6:46 left against Maryland. Gardner led Arizona with
21 points and had three of a dozen steals that left Michigan State
dazed.
Williams' backcourt partner is freshman Chris Duhon, who had 10
points and six assists against Maryland and was dazed by a late
collision with the Terps' Steve Blake. Gardner teams with Gilbert
Arenas, who scored 17 points and had six steals against Michigan
State and also missed playing time with a bruised right arm.
Both teams have important seniors up front. Duke's Shane Battier
is the Player of the Year and brought the Blue Devils back against
Maryland, scoring 25 points. Seven-footer Loren Woods, Arizona's
man in the middle, had 11 points and eight rebounds against Michigan
State.
Arizona's other two starters, Michael Wright and Richard
Jefferson, managed just one point between them in the first half
against Michigan State but the Wildcats still led 32-30 after 20
minutes. Then the quick hands of Arenas and Gardner forced a sea of
second-half mistakes by the Spartans that put the Wildcats in
charge.
Wright scored all 13 of his points in the second half and
Jefferson, limited to a single free throw in the first half,
finished with 17. But the difference was the quickness of the
sophomore backcourt of Arenas and Gardner. They were flawless
handling the ball with a season-low eight turnovers, More important
were the dozen steals the Wildcats recorded.
Larceny has been a big part of Arizona's approach all season.
The 12 steals marked the 10th time the Wildcats reached double
digits in that statistic. And they converted 15 turnovers into 21
points. In a game they won by 19, it was decisive defense.
"Offensively, we did a good job," Olson said. "But we won
this game on the defensive end."
And Michigan State coach Tom Izzo knew it.
"We threw interceptions time and time again," Izzo said.
"They shot the gap and picked off passes."
Olson complimented his team.
"We couldn't play better in the second half than what we did,"
he said. "We knew it would come down to the boards and turnovers.
We felt we could outshoot them as long as we didn't give them so
many second and third efforts."
That's been Arizona's formula all season, with 231 more rebounds
and 52 more steals than opponents.
And now they have one more game to play.
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