COLLEGE BASKETBALL / NCAA MEN’S CHAMPIONSHIP GAME : Crown Fits Tar Heels to a T : Final: Technical foul on Webber for illegal timeout seals North Carolina’s victory, 77-71. Williams is MVP.

NEW ORLEANS —  At the exact moment he called the timeout that Michigan didn’t have, the timeout that handed North Carolina a 77-71 victory, the timeout that gave the Tar Heels a national championship, Chris Webber looked as if he had seen a ghost.

The ghost of Fred Brown.

It was in this very Superdome 11 years ago that North Carolina Coach Dean Smith won his first NCAA title. He won it because frazzled Georgetown guard Fred Brown, for reasons still unknown, tossed the ball to then-Tar Heel James Worthy in the closing seconds of the game.

Until Monday evening, it was a play that nearly lived alone in NCAA tournament infamy. Now there is a companion piece.

Now there is The Timeout.

This was the situation as a Superdome audience of 64,151 anxiously watched:

With 46 seconds remaining in the game, Michigan forward Ray Jackson made a jumper to cut North Carolina’s lead to 72-69. That done, Michigan called a timeout, its last.

As they sat on their folding chairs, a preseason promise at stake, the players were issued last-minute strategy. Among the items discussed--no timeouts. Or so thought Michigan Coach Steve Fisher.

Onto the court the Wolverines went. A North Carolina turnover, followed by a Webber follow shot cut the Tar Heel lead to one point.

Fisher ordered his team to foul. Wolverine guard Rob Pelinka immediately hacked North Carolina forward Pat Sullivan. Sullivan made the front end of the one-and-one, but missed the second.

Webber, who had 23 points and 11 rebounds, grabbed the missed shot and headed down the right side of the court as the clock ticked away. Then, with 11 seconds left, Michigan trailing, 73-71, a national championship on the line, he signaled for a timeout.

The mistake led to a technical foul for excessive timeouts. Donald Williams made both free throws and North Carolina also got the ball back. And that was that.

“I just called a timeout, and we didn’t have a timeout,” Webber said. “That probably cost us the game.”

Fisher did his best to protect Webber. “Apparently it wasn’t clearly defined,” he said. “Apparently we didn’t get specific enough. We thought they were aware (of the lack of timeouts). But I’m the guy responsible for that.”

Webber wasn’t the only one confused. North Carolina forward George Lynch said he remembered watching Webber move down the sideline and hearing the Wolverine bench yell, “Call timeout! Call timeout!”

So he did and Smith now owns his second national title.

“We may not be the best team, but we’re the NCAA champions,” Smith said of the Tar Heels (34-4).

North Carolina guard Donald Williams helped make it possible. Williams scored 25 points, making five of seven three-pointers. For this he was named the Final Four most valuable player.

Williams led the Tar Heels in scoring during their six-game run to the championship and took the shots that counted most.

Tar Heel center Eric Montross also did his part. He scored 16 points and created difficulties for Michigan’s powerful inside game. Webber got his points, but the Wolverines’ other inside players, centers Juwan Howard and Eric Riley, finished with only seven and two points, respectively.

And if statistics mean anything, remember this one: So effective was Michigan’s power game in its overtime victory against Kentucky in the semifinal game, it didn’t have to make a single three-pointer. Against North Carolina, the Wolverines (31-5) shot 15 and made only five.

“When we went zone, they were impatient and wanted to get the ball inside to Webber,” Williams said. “They were not getting good looks at the basket. They wanted to rush shots and wanted us to play more man-to-man and give the game more of their style.”

It didn’t happen. North Carolina stuck to Smith’s system, which is to say it forced Michigan to play at the Tar Heels’ pace more than it liked. After 32 years of coaching and 774 victories, Smith has this thing down to a science.

Meanwhile, Michigan was forced to live with Webber’s error and the knowledge that only two other schools--Ohio State and Houston--have lost consecutive national title games.

Last year it was Duke that beat the Wolverines, 71-51. After that, Webber and the Michigan team vowed they would earn their own national championship ring the next year in New Orleans. Anything less, they said, would be considered a failure of sorts.

The Wolverines came close, close enough to cause Webber the same sort of pain he experienced last season. All week he had said the loss to the Blue Devils was the lowest point of his life.

And now? “It’s the same,” he said. “It’s the exact same.”

Michigan has no reason to be embarrassed. The Wolverines advanced to the Final Four for the third time in five years. But the emotional wear of the tournament might have taken its toll on Michigan. Not counting their first-round blowout against Coastal Carolina, the Wolverines won the next four games by an average of 4.5 points.

“This definitely hurts more than last year,” Pelinka said.

The game started innocently enough. North Carolina didn’t waste time with any newfangled strategies. From the opening sequence it was obvious the Tar Heels wanted the ball in Montross’ hands. The only problem with this is that Michigan and anyone else with a game program knew it too. In fact, the first time Montross attempted a shot, Webber nearly attached it to the the Tar Heel center’s forehead.

Still, North Carolina took a 5-0 lead and looked comfortable enough as Michigan searched for a way to beat the Tar Heel defense. With 15:07 remaining in the half, the Wolverines found it.

His name was Pelinka and his two consecutive three-pointers began a 19-4 Michigan scoring run that took the Wolverines from a 9-4 deficit to a 23-13 lead in less than 4 minutes 30 seconds.

Back and forth it went, with North Carolina tying the score, 25-25, with 8:01 in the half. Michigan then inched ahead, but no lead lasted very long.

North Carolina led by as many as eight points early in the second half, but Michigan tied the score, 56-56, with 10:10 left to play. Leads were exchanged and with 3:51 to go, the Wolverines actually had a one-point advantage.

But unlike the game against Kentucky, Michigan couldn’t hold on. Nor could it remember a simple fact: no more timeouts.

“Chris Webber is the heart and soul of this team and he should not be blamed for our loss,” Pelinka said. “It’s unfortunate this is how the game will be remembered.”

Notes

Ticket prices for Monday night’s championship game fell with the fortunes of Kansas and Kentucky. After those teams lost Saturday, their fans were unloading tickets. Scalpers who were getting as much as $100 earlier were getting as little as $10 before the final. . . . The all-tournament team: North Carolina’s George Lynch, Eric Montross and Donald Williams; Michigan’s Chris Webber, and Kentucky’s Jamal Mashburn.