Joseph Forte, North Carolina’s freshman shooting guard, reset himself at the foul line and exhaled.All through this Sunday afternoon his play had bordered on brilliant. His performance had virtually carried the Tar Heels in their South Regional final with Tulsa, but moments earlier he had finally faltered and missed the first of the two free throws.
The Golden Hurricane, with a furious rush, had closed to within three, and the clock hanging above Forte showed that 4.1 seconds still remained. “But he came out ready to play,” Tulsa star Eric Coley later said. “There were times we thought we had a stop on them and he made the play for them. There were times when we were all over him and he still made the play.”
“Joseph Forte has a lot of confidence,” explained North Carolina point guard Ed Cota. “Sometimes he might look cocky, but he’s not being cocky at all. It’s confidence in himself and his game.”
“When the NCAA tournament started I was a little nervous,” said the phlegmatic Forte himself. “But I got over that.”
He got over it while leading the eighth-seeded Tar Heels to this moment in Austin, and dropped his second free throw to close out their 59-55 victory and put them in the Final Four, where they will meet Florida in Saturday’s semifinals. “I thought about us winning before the game, and how I’d react to it all,” Forte said after finishing with 28 points and eight rebounds, winning the region’s most outstanding player award, and throwing the game ball into the stands in celebration. “I was just showing appreciation and trying to absorb it all. The big game. The big win.”
This was also a game few expected Carolina to reach even though it was regarded highly when this season began. But the Tar Heels made the tournament despite an 18-13 record, and advanced with victories over Missouri, top-seeded Stanford and fourth-seeded Tennessee.
Then, on Sunday, they blunted Tulsa’s pressure defense with some smart and patient play and muffled Tulsa’s quick-strike offense with with their size and with switching defenses. “They were much quicker than us, and we wanted to throw different things at them,” explained Cota. “We wanted to switch up to throw them off.”
Said Tulsa coach Bill Self: “It was not their offense that beat us. If you hold Carolina to 59 points, you should win the game. We didn’t win this game because we couldn’t put the ball in the basket.”
The Golden Hurricane shot 37.3 percent overall (22 of 59) and 25 percent (5 of 20) on their threes, and that surely was one reason it lost. Coley (six points) and Brandon Kurtz (11 points, nine rebounds) and David Shelton, its best rebounders, were constantly in foul trouble, and that also contributed to its loss and Carolina’s 40-29 rebounding edge.
Its defense, which had pressured opponents into an average of 21 turnovers a game, had consistently made up for its small size. But it forced Carolina into only 15 and produced a mere 15 points off turnovers.
Yet with 9:05 remaining, this one still was tied 41-41.
But in the next 3:40, Carolina finally asserted its physical superiority and set off on a 10-0 run while forcing the Golden Hurricane into three turnovers and missing the only two shots it took. “I thought our depth would wear on them, so I still felt good,” Self said.
With two minutes left and his team down seven, he was proven prophetic.
Cota committed a turnover, and a Dante Swanson (15 points) layup at 1:49 pulled Tulsa to within five. Cota committed another turnover, and a Swanson dunk at 1:03 pulled it to within three. “I was tired,” said Cota, who would play the full 40, but at :28.7 Forte hit two free throws to push Carolina’s lead back up five.
Now came a Swanson three at :20.7, a free throw by Cota at :18, and with seven seconds left and a chance to tie, a forced three by Shelton that clanged off the front rim and sent Forte to the line seconds later.
“I’ll be quite honest. We panicked,” Self admitted. “Instead of putting the ball down and going to get a two, we took that shot. We didn’t do a real good job of executing. But the play was right.”
“I’m so happy for the team and so proud of them,” said Carolina coach Bill Guthridge. “They really hung in there through some difficult times, and they helped keep me going. Doing this is obviously unexpected. But I believed and the team believed. I think that’s why we’re going [to the Final Four].”
That, and a healthy dose of a special freshman named Joseph Forte.
