Blake Griffin had just made the play of the game and perhaps this NCAA tournament — a one-handed dunk of an Austin Johnson lob pass.
But Ty Lawson countered in less than eight seconds, slicing through the defense for a runner in the lane.
That second-half sequence was Sunday’s NCAA South regional final in capsule: the brilliance of Oklahoma’s Griffin against the precision of North Carolina’s Tar Heels.
One-against-five is rarely a fair fight, and it certainly wasn’t here as North Carolina advanced to its second consecutive Final Four with a workmanlike 72-60 victory.
Oklahoma never led and trailed by at least nine throughout the final 27 minutes. The Tar Heels’ stranglehold was such that they didn’t need Tyler Hansbrough. He spent most of the first half on the bench with two fouls, took only four shots and finished with eight points in 26 minutes.
“That just shows the depth we have,” guard Wayne Ellington said. “We have guys capable of coming in and playing big-time minutes.”
Particularly in the low post.
“Ed Davis, Tyler Zeller and myself,” Deon Thompson said. “That’s a luxury our team definitely has.”
And Oklahoma does not. The Sooners have little beyond the sublime Griffin, a 6-foot-10-inch sophomore and presumptive No. 1 draft pick.
Griffin had game bests of 23 points and 16 rebounds. His low-post bursts and relentless rebounding made Hansbrough appear ordinary and left Carolina coach Roy Williams calling him “LeBron James-like … such a package of strength, explosiveness, touch, power.”
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But Oklahoma missed all nine of its three-point attempts in the first half and 17 of 19 overall. This from a team that ranked second nationally in field-goal percentage at 49.3.
“Every time they passed it to [Griffin], I just went down and doubled and tried to get the ball out of his hands,” Lawson said.
Griffin, an excellent passer and selfless teammate, passed back out dutifully, but others were tentative.
“We had the tempo where we wanted it,” Oklahoma coach Jeff Capel said. “To hold that team that’s averaging 90 to 72? We had all of that where we wanted. The only thing we couldn’t do was make shots early in the game.”
Yes, Oklahoma limited North Carolina to 72 points and became the first team to hold Hansbrough and Ellington below 10. But the Sooners could not contain Lawson, the regional’s most outstanding player. He had 19 points, five assists, five rebounds and three steals with just one turnover.
“You remember in the preseason,” Williams said, “everybody was asking me how I was going to keep everybody happy, and I said I’d rather have too many players than not enough. Most of our guys know they’re not going to get 30 shots [a game], but most of our guys know they’ve got a great chance to win.”