Virginia won the championship
"Virginia, with All-Time Turn-around Title!"
The final whistle sounded, and the ribbon symbolizing victory fell from the sky above the arena. The players of the University of Virginia Cavaliers were finally able to celebrate freely. The commentator excitedly used "an unprecedented reversal to win the championship" to describe this difficult championship. People who don’t know their story may find it difficult to understand what this trophy means to this group of young people.
This is not just a dream honor, not just a battle to win, but also a great redemption for .
Today is not the same as
At this time last year, they went home early to fish: the Cavaliers, the number one seed in the first round of , lost humiliatingly to the University of Maryland, Baltimore, . When the score was frozen at 54-74, the Cavaliers on the court were silent, and the fans and experts in front of the TV were dumbfounded. In NCAA history, there has never been a division No. 1 seed in the first round, never, not to mention that the University of Virginia is actually the No. 1 seed in the United States, and their opponent is almost the worst of the 64 teams to make the championship.
"Tony has no March life." fans criticized Virginia coach Tony Bennett after the game. This is understandable: they are the strongest iron walls in college basketball, but they collapsed under the strafing of a bird gun array. The team's core Kyle Guy suffered from depression after losing and locked himself in the room for several days before calming down. It was the darkest moment for the Virginia Cavaliers, and the word "basketball" became almost a taboo on campus.
But now, they have a year to reminisce about this unparalleled journey of redemption .
Virginia returns with full health
This season, Virginia maintains their usual iron-blooded defense. After welcoming Guy and Deandre Hunter, who was absent from the first round of injury last year, the team's strength has been steadily improving. Tony Bennett won the ACC League's Best Coach, Hunter won the Best Defensive Player, and joined hands with Guy to enter the league's first team. After entering the tournament, they locked in the No. 1 seed in the South District. has similar plots and similar settings, everything seems to be back to last year.
This time, they did not mess up: after successfully entered the second round, they eliminated the only Oregon University in the PAC-12 league, and will face the Purdue University Boiler Team, which has just eliminated defending champions Veranova and Tennessee in the quarterfinals.
Edwards Gods Down to Earth
Hotel worker's core is junior guard Carsen Edwards. In this game, he was like a gods Down to Earth, setting a record 10 three-pointers, scoring 42 points of the team's 75 points. He instinctively used that crucial step back to hit the board three-pointer to send the Cavaliers home, adding a footnote to the craziest individual show in the history of the tournament, but God gave Virginia a chance to escape from death: They equalized the score with a buzzer-beating throw and defeated their opponents in the subsequent overtime.
This victory was too difficult for Virginia, so when lifting the championship trophy in the South section and cutting off the Nets that symbolize victory, Bennet, who has always been calm and calm, rarely showed his passion before the media, bursting out his depression from last year to the present with a long roar. This is his first time leading the team to the final four and is writing an excellent history.
Guy's free throw win against Auburn University
The semi-finals against Auburn University Tigers, the two defensive strong teams staged a fierce tug-of-war. The scores of both sides rose alternately, and after one climax, the other can quickly recover. With 9 minutes and 31 seconds left, Ty Jerome launched a Virginia offensive, expanding the score to 10 points in one fell swoop; while the Tigers still did not give up on biting, Bryce Brown scored three three-pointers in a row, leading the team to a 14-0 climax to complete the overtake.At the critical moment, Guy stood up for the Cavaliers: first hit the defense with a high difficulty three-pointer in the right corner, and then caused the opponent's three-point foul less than a second after the game, and sent the opponent home with a three-free throw.
Virginia and Texas Tech advanced to the finals
So, the Virginia Cavaliers and Texas Tech Red Raiders, two non-hero teams who started with defense, set foot on the highest stage of the finals for the first time. No matter who wins, it will be the first time that the school history has won. is working hard and determined to avenge the past, while starting from scratch and aiming to create history. The finals of
were not surprisingly turned into a defensive battle from the beginning, and the core of both teams fell into a downturn in the first half: Hunter scored only 5 points in 1 of 8 shots, and Jarrett Culver, who had a prospect of the top ten, missed all of his first 8 shots. The star was silent, but the other players of the two teams were not outdone at all: Guy and Jerome scored consecutively, and Francis (Brandon Francis) and Kyler Edwards on the bench were astonishing as the three-point line. At the end of the half, the score between the two teams was locked at 32-29.
Hunter's key three-pointer
Change of sides and fight again. The core of both teams gradually regained their form. Virginia took the lead in finding the offensive rhythm. Hunter, Guy and Jerome's tridents jointly performed, and the Cavaliers once approached the score difference by double digits. But the Red Raiders were extremely tough. Matt Mooney, who became a surprise player in the semi-finals, finally opened in the second half, Texas Tech blossomed at multiple points and finally tied the score. The two teams then continued to bite the score. Culver fought Hunter with a single layup to score a score overtake. After the opponent made two free throws, Hunter immediately hit a three-pointer to tie the game - the showdown between the two forward stars almost ran through the entire game.
Overtime, the hard-working Red Assaulter finally couldn't withstand the storm in Virginia. The crazy three-pointer in regular time turned into repeated attacks in the last five minutes. The Cavaliers used precise free throws to erase the suspense of the game one by one. But until the last second, Texas Tech did not give up on the competition. The final score was frozen at 85-77. Hunter threw the basketball high into the sky, and Virginia won the first championship in team history, completely bidding farewell to the bitterness of returning home in the first round last year. Finally, this time they wrote the winner's chapter to the end.
Texas Tech is admirable
Texas Tech is admirable : Their five starters were unfamiliar in high school, and the core Culver is the 312th high school student in the 2017 ESPN rankings, and the highest ranking is guard Moretti: 132nd place in the 2017 class. Unlike famous schools such as Duke, Kentucky, North Carolina, which attracts the best high school students every year, coach Chris Brad uses his unique magic to tie up these players who do not have outstanding talents, becoming the most inspiring hottest this March.
But unfortunately, they were a little lucky and stopped at the closest to their dreams.
Heaven favors Virginia
Heaven favors Virginia. is not only a escapist from the death of the first two rounds, but the two key decisions in the regular time of this game were beneficial to Virginia: once, Guy was tripped by his teammate who came to cover, but the referee awarded Texas Tech for two fouls, and he made both free throws over the score; in the next round, Moretti fought back with the ball and made a mistake under Hunter's interference, but the replay showed that he had received Hunter's infringement before, and the ball was finally awarded to Virginia.
But this does not prevent them from writing the most perfect story in the basketball world : Returning from the trough to the peak, they spent a whole year packing up their mood and rectifying their clothes, staged an unprecedented return from the king.
This time, they can leave
Maybe there are always regrets in youth, but for the young people of the Virginia Cavaliers, at least this time, they can leave this proud battlefield with a smile.
