(1) North Carolina 83, (3) Louisville 73: The Cardinals staged a furious comeback from a 12-point halftime deficit to pull even at 59 with 10:21 remaining in the second half, but couldn't close out the Tar Heels down the stretch. Carolina pulled away late in the game, led by another tremendous performance from East Region Most Outstanding Player Tyler Hansbrough (28 points, 13 boards).
Helped by partisan crowds in Raleigh and Charlotte, the Heels have won all four tournament games this season by double-digits. The last three teams to accomplish that feat -- Connecticut in 2004, Duke in 2001 and Michigan State in 2000 -- went on to win the national title.
The Final Four berth is coach Roy Williams' sixth -- putting him in a tie with legendary coaches Adolph Rupp of Kentucky and Denny Crum of Louisville. Only John Wooden (12), Mike Krzyzewski (10) and Williams' mentor, Dean Smith (11) can boast more.
Midwest Regional Final
(1) Kansas 59, (10) Davidson 57: The Jayhawks were too big, too strong, too athletic and too deep to become Stephen Curry's latest victim.
With aggressive, in-your-face defense and a four-guard rotation that kept the backcourt fresh, Bill Self's team managed to do something no one else could manage during this tournament: hold Stephen Curry under 30. Davidson's dead-eye shooter had to settle for a mere 25 points on 9-of-25 shooting, and none of the other Wildcats were able to pick up the slack; Bryant Barr (11 points) was the only other Davidson player to score in double figures.
As usual, no one Jayhawk lit up the scoreboard. Kansas' balanced attack featured 13 points each from center Sasha Kaun and guard Mario Chalmers and 12 from Brandon Rush.
South Regional Final
(1) Memphis 85, (2) Texas 67: The showdown between two of college hoops' best point guards turned into a mismatch -- and so did the game itself.
Memphis freshman Derrick Rose left little doubt as to the identity of the top point in the NCAA, scoring 21 points on 7-of-10 shooting, dishing out nine assists on his way to winning the South Region's Most Outstanding Player award and a trip to San Antonio for his Tigers.
Rose's competition, Texas point guard D.J. Augustin, scored 16 points with just three dimes.
This trip to the Final Four represents redemption of a sort for both university and coach -- the last Final Four trips for Memphis (in 1985, when the school was known as Memphis State) and for coach John Calipari (with Massachusetts in 1996) were stricken from the official NCAA record books due to rules violations.
West Regional Final
(1) UCLA 76, (3) Xavier 57: Ben Howland's Bruins picked an excellent time to play their first complete game in weeks, thoroughly dominating the Xavier Musketeers and nailing down their third straight -- and record eighteenth overall -- trip to the Final Four. (Nineteenth if you count their 1980 trip, which was officially expunged from the record books due to NCAA violations.)
The Bruins built a nine-point lead in the first half, then went on a 14-zip run early in the second that ended the contest early. Xavier had no answer for UCLA super-freshman Kevin Love, who scored 19 points, grabbed 10 boards and shot 7-for-11 from the field and 2-of-4 from three. Fittingly, he was named the Most Outstanding Player of the West Regional.
UCLA's suffocating man-to-man defense held Xavier to just 36% shooting.
