Smith had to call a timeout. As a highly decorated and experienced veteran, he swears he has never encountered such a strange thing in his years as a manager.

At the end of the first half, he clearly saw that Villanova's players were exhausted, which is the fundamental reason why he did not set up too many tactics at halftime, but only asked his players to continue to follow the tactics laid out at the beginning of the game. But now he's a little frustrated, and he should have made some changes at half-time.

However, there are no ifs and ifs, so now the gap between the two sides is only 2 points. Smith brandished his tactical board and yelled at the frustrated and unwilling North Carolina players: "Cheer me up, boys, although the advantage is small, we are undoubtedly still in the lead!" If you don't doubt yourselves, no one can beat us! ”

"Then we need more shots and you have to make sure you hit your shots, and it's a bit embarrassing, but it's really not going to be a big man for us, so we have to destroy them from the outside. Vince, you have a lot of balls to hit the inside, but you have to remember to pass the ball out, Richard will pick you up from outside the three-point line, do you understand? ”

Karter nodded, but there was not much of a smile on his face. Despite his reputation in the NBA, he's still the No. 3 at the University of North Carolina. Smith understands his talent and has given him the responsibility of attacking with the ball in key moments, which of course has to do with his good fitness.

But everyone knows why he's not very happy, and Smith is undoubtedly a little upset when he asks him to pass the ball, a natural offensive player who prefers to score by hitting the basket rather than passing. He attributed that to Thomas's strong defense in the second half of the first half, and in his opinion, if it wasn't for the opponent's continuous interference with the layup, the head coach wouldn't have issued an order for him to break through the attraction defense and then split the ball beyond the three-point line.

Carter has always boasted of being talented, and despite what Smith has said, he still wants to try and score under Thomas' defense. On the first offense after the timeout, he didn't follow the head coach's instructions and continued to fight Thomas under the basket. Unsurprisingly, his layup was disrupted again, Thomas grabbed the rebound and threw it straight to the frontcourt, and Ervin, who started early, easily completed a long run, and now the two sides are tied.

Smith angrily got up from his seat and glared at Carter. Obviously, the old coach has a lot of power, Carter shrank his neck, scratched his head embarrassedly, and hurriedly ran back to his own half to catch the ball.

However, this fast-break layup greatly boosted Villanova's morale, and now they are on the same page as North Carolina and there is still a long way to go before the end of the game, so they may not be able to beat North Carolina.

When Carter began to pass the ball obediently as requested, North Carolina's offense began to pick up. But first, Carter is not a full-time point guard, his passing ability and court vision are still far from pure point guards, and second, North Carolina's performance outside the three-point line is also very average, and there is no trustworthy shooter other than Jamison, which is obviously affected by the first half.

On the basketball court, the shooting percentage is determined not only by the effort put into the shooting by the players themselves, but also by their physical strength. The vast majority of people have tried that when they are exhausted, the muscles can get out of control, and when the players can't control their arm and finger muscles, the drop in hit percentage becomes inevitable.

The complete opposite of them is that several of Villanova's shooters on the outside have reached a normal level of shooting, thanks to the small cookies provided by Chang Wei, otherwise the two sides would only be half a pound.

As the clock ticked by, North Carolina never regained the initiative, while Villanova maintained a lead of about five points. Although it is not very big, whenever North Carolina looks like it is going to close the difference, Thomas and Erwin can always team up to open up the gap again, which is a huge blow to the confidence of North Carolina players.

With a beep of the timer, the game ended. Even at the neutral venue, most of the fans stood up to applaud Villanova, perhaps the biggest upset since the start of the NCAA National Championship this season. Of course, Villanova is not weak, they are the No. 4 seed in the Eastern Conference, but North Carolina is considered to have a chance to challenge for the championship, but the defeat to Villanova 81-85 was a big surprise.

Looking at the numbers on the scoreboard, the North Carolina players were stunned, they couldn't believe it was true, and their frustration was all the more contrasting with Villanova's victory. The team's two giants, Jamison and Carter, gritted their teeth and decided to play in the NCAA for another year and avenge next season.

This is one of the reasons why many players give up the temptation to stay in the NCAA with a high pick, and they are not willing to accept the loss to an opponent and decide to complete their revenge in the new season. However, it is the talented players with arrogant personalities who use this as a reason, and most people would not dare to make this decision, even if they want to stay, they will not use this reason.

Beating North Carolina means that Villanova has already held the Eastern Conference championship with one hand, because the other team to reach the Eastern Conference finals is the No. 6 seed University of Louisville, and Chang Wei does not see any top stars in their roster who will dominate in the future, and their biggest reliance may be their luck, the overall strength of the second half is obviously not as good as the first half, and their opponent in the Final Four is still the dark horse of the University of Texas, so they passed easily.

There were no surprises in the Eastern Conference finals, but there was little media attention on the match, and the No. 4 seed vs. No. 6 seed didn't seem to be much to look forward to. Also being snubbed was the Southeast corner final, where No. 4 seed University of Arizona took on No. 10 seed Providence University, which could be more painful than Villanova vs. Louisville.

Everyone's attention is on the final between the West and Central West regions, which is called Mars hitting the Earth, and it is also the most popular matchup for fans. The top seed in the Mid and West regions at the University of Minnesota against the No. 2 seed UCLA and the top seed from the West at the University of Kentucky against the No. 2 seed at the University of Utah are just what the NCAA is happy to see.

After all the divisional finals, the final four of the season are Villanova University, the University of Arizona, the University of Minnesota, and the University of Kentucky. According to the schedule set at the beginning, the final four matches will be strong vs. strong, weak vs. weak, Villanova vs. Arizona, Minnesota vs. Kentucky.