PHILADELPHIA — Saint Peter’s had been the ultimate underdog, an overlooked team of overlooked players representing a school of 2,134 mostly overlooked kids. In 10 days, they had captivated America, toppling Kentucky and Purdue, and exploding with joy along the way. They summited courtside tables and “trending” lists. They filled the Wells Fargo Center and New Jersey boulevards. They’d made history, as the first No. 15 seed to reach the Elite Eight, and “looked forward to making more.”
“Unfortunately for America,” though, as North Carolina’s Leaky Black said here Saturday, “Cinderella or not, they’re kinda in our way.”
The eighth-seeded Tar Heels rammed Saint Peter’s right out of their way on Sunday. They ended Cinderella’s magical run with authority, winning 69-49 and dominating every single facet of this Elite Eight game. They bullied the overmatched Peacocks, shot over them and sped past them. They subdued a sold-out crowd and sprinted to the program’s 21st Final Four.
This one, though, will be unlike any of the first 20.
Awaiting them in New Orleans, for the first time in NCAA men’s basketball tournament history, will be their despised rival, Duke.
Saint Peter’s had been an uplifting story. Even North Carolina players could admit that. But the Tar Heels, Black said, had “bigger dreams.” Their first-year head coach, Hubert Davis, had helped instill them by speaking evocatively about his own experiences as a player at North Carolina; about his 1991 run to the Final Four and the memories that still linger. Davis told his players: “The only thing that I’ve ever wanted is [for you] to experience and see the things that I’ve been able to experience here.”
A couple months ago, that seemed far-fetched. Carolina followed up a 28-point loss to Miami with a 22-point loss at Wake Forest. It was 12-6, 4-3 in the ACC, an NCAA tournament bubbler at best, and less than a year into Davis’ first season, fans had soured.
On a chilly bus ride across North Carolina that night, Davis stewed. When the Tar Heels arrived back in Chapel Hill, players stuck around the facility, met amongst themselves and aired frustrations. The following day, they returned expecting a tongue-lashing.
Davis, instead, delivered a counterintuitive message that, in many ways, marked the beginning of this Final Four run.
He brought positivity, and promises that the team’s goals were still attainable. “Guys, I love you,” he told them.
“And I feel like that was a turning point in our season, seeing how positive he was,” Black said last week.
They rattled off four straight wins. They lost to Duke, and later to Pitt, but since, they’ve lost just once in five weeks. They spoiled Coach K’s Cameron Indoor Stadium farewell, and then Baylor’s title defense. In the Sweet 16, they took punch after punch from UCLA, and punched back.
As they survived and advanced, some ignored the bigger picture. Armando Bacot, though, is a college hoops junkie, and couldn’t ignore a historic Cinderella run. He watched Saint Peter’s stun Kentucky. “I’ve been rootin’ for ’em all tournament,” he said.
“I mean,” he admitted Saturday, “if I was a fan, I’d probably be rootin’ for them to beat us too.”
And thousands did. North Jersey descended on Philly. The Saint Peter’s community and countless others — from alumni to faculty, from pastors to pub owners, from months-old babies to players’ childhood neighbors — came along for the ride. They savored the occasion, posing for pictures, gazing around the arena in awe.
The Tar Heels, though, had business to attend to.
“They hang their hat on punching teams in the mouth, being the underdog,” Black said. “We just had to let them know it wasn’t going to happen tonight.”
Bacot pulled down 14 rebounds in his first 13 minutes on the floor. Carolina, equipped with length and athleticism that the Peacocks had never encountered, strutted out to a 9-0 lead and never looked back. Bacot finished with 20 points and 22 boards. Brady Manek scored 19. Caleb Love darted past Saint Peter’s defenders and knifed to the rim at will.
Their supremacy was both devastating and matter-of-fact. They played like a team that had not, for even one moment, looked ahead to Duke.
Bacot, though, had kept that bigger picture in the back of his brain. He knew that, inches above the Tar Heels on brackets across America, Duke awaited. “I’d be lying to you if I said that hasn’t crossed my mind,” Bacot said Saturday. He assured reporters that he’d watch the Blue Devils that night. As they ousted Arkansas, he was surely reminded that college basketball’s pre-eminent rivalry had never been contested in the NCAA tournament — and that an unprecedented Final Four showdown was now just one Carolina win away.
Davis knew the possibility loomed as well. In lecturing players, he cited a Bible verse, Proverbs 4:25, which he paraphrased Saturday: “Keep your eyes straight ahead, ignore all sideshow distractions.”
“What’s straight ahead is Saint Peter’s,” he told reporters. “So our full attention is on our preparation, our practice and making sure that we play our best against a great Saint Peter’s team.”
But America’s attention drifted toward the allure of history, of a first-ever Tobacco Road rivalry in April and in, of all seasons, Mike Krzyzewski’s last. North Carolina had already spoiled his first retirement party, beating the Blue Devils in his final game at Cameron.
Now, these red-hot Tar Heels have a chance to end his career.