Final Five Minutes Belong to Tar Heels

SYRACUSE, N.Y. —  Having proved it was more than a nice story some games ago, California took its place at the Carrier Dome amid a crowd of Carolina blue, hoping for another chapter.

Once more without injured star Ed Gray, once again with a band of nasty inside players, one last chance for a resilient group of six seniors.

But grit, luck and that inside game fell minutes short Friday night, and the Golden Bears’ run in the NCAA tournament ended, 63-57 to No. 1-seeded North Carolina, as Antawn Jamison scored 15 second-half points and the Tar Heels clamped down on Cal late with a stifling zone defense.

“This team has responded and competed all season,” Cal Coach Ben Braun said. “We just couldn’t do it for five more minutes.”

The final five minutes was when North Carolina turned a 48-48 game into a victory, outscoring Cal, 15-9, to end it, and winning despite their lowest point total in a tournament victory since 1985. The Tar Heels (27-6) will play Louisville on Sunday in the East Regional final.

“This feels like a loss,” Tar Heel Coach Dean Smith said. “Give them credit. We were lucky to have won the way the handled us on the boards [37-34].”

It would have been a loss had Jamison not taken over when Cal (23-9) seemed most in control. With the Bears leading, 43-36, 6-foot-7, 250-pound Cal forward Tony Gonzalez checked out and the Bears lost some bulk inside.

Jamison then scored the first 12 points during a 17-5 run that could have been worse had Randy Duck (15 points) not saved a suddenly clueless Cal offense with a baseline jump shot and a three-pointer.

“I didn’t want to come in the locker room and say that I should have done this, or I should have done that,” said Jamison, who finished with 21.

Vince Carter (14 points) had the final five points in the run, with a pretty alley-oop and a three-pointer, putting North Carolina ahead for good, 53-48. The Tar Heel defense continued to baffle the Bears with a zone that was never quite figured out, and a mix-up by Cal had some players thinking they were in man defense instead of a zone called by Braun.

“I thought we were in the zone most of the time and we changed the defense but I didn’t hear it,” said sixth-year Cal forward Alfred Grigsby. “[Jamison] was able to get two transition baskets off us and that really tore down the momentum we had.”

After dominating inside early and trailing only 28-26 at halftime, the Bears were relegated to shooting outside late and made only eight of 23 three-pointers.

“That was the big story of the game,” Braun said. “Early, I think our guys really dominated in the paint, but then they went to that zone and we couldn’t make the shots.”

Maybe the Bears were only an ankle injury away from the upset, with Gray on the court instead of the bench. He would have certainly had the ball in his hands, and he would have gotten the looks.