Gonzaga Bulldogs vs. North Carolina Tar Heels - Simulation Game

Gonzaga Bulldogs vs. North Carolina Tar Heels 10:00 ET

March Madness sports betting is in full swing once again and on Friday night two teams that are quite familiar being on the grandest stage in college basketball will take to the court when the #4 Gonzaga Bulldogs (28-5, 15-15 ATS) lock horns with the #1 North Carolina Tar Heels (30-4, 13-19 ATS). The Zags made their way to the Sweet 16 by beating both #13 Akron and #12 Western Kentucky, but couldn’t cover the basketball betting line in either game. North Carolina blew Radford out of the water in Round 1 (101-58), and then rode PG Ty Lawson’s 23 points to an 84-70 neutral court win & cover against LSU in the second round.

Without further ado, let’s see how the South regional semifinal played out…

1st Half

The Zags won the opening tip, but promptly had a bad omen when G Jeremy Pargo threw the ball out of bounds before they could get the ball into the front court. Carolina opened up the scoring with a Lawson three-pointer, and immediately picked up the full-court pressure. Gonzaga turned the ball over four times in its first six possessions, and HC Mark Few had to burn a timeout just 3:20 into the game with his squad trailing 10-2.

The Bulldogs settled down a bit after that. Pargo, who was guilty of three of those four turnovers, settled down and started to run through offensive progressions. Back-to-back buckets by F Austin Day and leading scorer F Josh Heytvelt cut the lead to 10-6 at the first media timeout.

The next eight minutes belonged to the boys in baby blue. F Wayne Ellington took over, scoring eight of UNC’s next sixteen points, including a four-point play right at the 12:00 mark of the first half that put the Heels up by a dozen. Meanwhile, the Zags couldn’t take advantage on the boards like LSU did, and it came back to bite them several times. F Tyler Hansbrough had four offensive rebounds in three possessions, all of which turned into Carolina points. With 7:40 left in the first half, North Carolina led 38-22, and the game looked all but over.

The pressure just kept mounting on Gonzaga. Hansbrough was scoring on the inside, and Lawson and Ellington were doing damage from beyond the arc. North Carolina reached the 50-point plateau with almost 4:00 to go in the half, and it was apparent that these two teams just didn’t belong on the same court.

Hansbrough had 12 points and 9 boards at the half, while Ellington led the way with 16 points. The Heels outrebounded the Bulldogs 22-12 in the first half, and had a +7 margin in the turnover battle. HC Roy Williams’ squad went to the locker room up by a 57-39 count.

2nd Half

Things just never really got going for Gonzaga. The pace of the game slowed down dramatically in the first part of the second half, but it wasn’t helping the Bulldogs any. Carolina came out of the blocks shooting a blistering 8/11 from the field, and though Gonzaga was doing its best to keep pace, just couldn’t keep up.

The only bright spot was that UNC was starting to get into foul trouble around the 10:00 mark of the second half. Hansbrough picked up his fourth foul and went to the bench, and that’s when the Zags finally put together a run. Pargo and G Steven Gray both nailed triples to spark a 9-0 Gonzaga run, but that only cut the lead to 72-60. From there, UNC put the game away.