Man's swimmers earn All-America lienors —Pago 7 Sports Monday Lynch wills Tar Heels back into Final Four By Warren Hynes Senior Writer EAST RUTHERFORD, NJ. lt wouldn’t have been enough for George Lynch. Thirty-one wins, an ACC regular season title, an appearance in the NCAA’s “elite eight” all were not enough. Only a Final Four. Nothing less. “It definitely would have been a dis appointing season,” he said. “With our team, I think we deserved nothing less than another trip to the Final Four.” North Carolina’s senior leader had watched his team mature in the 1992-93 season. He knew how good this squad was, and he wasn’t going to let tough Arkansas and Cincinnati teams keep his men from getting to New Orleans. JOINING THE # JAMBOREE jyt MICHIGAN 77. TEMPLE 72 The Associated Press SEATTLE Michigan, perhaps the best team in the country at playing half a game, is going back to the Final Four after a show of brute power and raw talent overcame a big deficit against Temple. The Wolverines danced on the court and donned Final Four shirts at the end of their 77-72 victory Sunday, awaiting a meeting with Kentucky in New Orleans. Fortunately for the Wolverines, they put together their best play in the second half against the Owls, coming back after trailing by eight points at the half. Jalen Rose led Michigan with 17points, 13 in the second half, as he took control of the offense along with off-guard Jimmy King, who had 14 points. Michigan (30-4) was aided in the final minutes by a technical call against Temple coach John Chaney. The Owls trailed only 67-62 with 1:49 left when Chaney complained about a call. That allowed Michigan to pull away with five free throws —one on the technical, two on the call and two more on another play on Michigan’s regaining of possession. KANSAS 83, INDIANA 76 The Associated Press ST. LOUIS Poise. Patience. Toughness. Confidence. They are the ingredi ents Kansas coach Roy Williams believes are needed to beat a team the quality of top-ranked Indiana. His Jayhawks displayed all four Saturday night, and more like hustle, unselfishness, aggressiveness, desire. Consequently, they are in the Final Four for the second time in three years, and will play North Carolina. The Jayhawks (29-6) extended their halfcourt man-to-man defense against Indiana and it worked. The Hoosiers (31 -4) only shot 45 percent and All-American Calbert Cheaney had to work exhaustively for his 22 points. “They just take you out of your game,” said Indiana guard Damon Bailey, who scored just seven points and was in second-half foul trouble. “They put a lot of pressure on you. We weren’t pressured all year like we were tonight.” Kansas used its depth to wear down the Hoosiers, who had five players play 27 minutes or more but didn’t have anyone else play more than 11 minutes. Williams shuttled 10 players in and out eight of them for 14 minutes or more. KENTUCKY 106,FSU81 The Associated Press CHARLOTTE, N.C. Kentucky made sure a last-second shot wouldn’t stop its run to the Final Four this time. The Wildcats, getting 22 points and 11 rebounds from unlikely star Jared Prickett, defeated Florida State 106-81 Saturday in the Southeast Regional final. Kentucky’s fourth consecutive blowout, by an average margin of 31 points, moved the Wildcats into next Saturday’s NCAA semifinal in New Orleans against Michigan. The Wildcats (30-3) are going to the Final Four for the 10th time and the first time since losing to Georgetown in the 1984 semifinals. It will be the second Final Four for Kentucky coach Rick Pitino, who took Providence to the national semifinals in 1987, the last time the Final Four was in New Orleans. Like Kentucky’s three previous tournament games, this one was over long before the final buzzer. The Wildcats, who averaged 97 points in roaring through the Southeast Regional as the No. 1 seed, took an eight-point halftime lead, then broke it open with an 11-0 run in the second half. Van Exel cools in 2nd half as UNC forges comeback By Bryan Strickland Senior Writer EAST RUTHERFORD, NJ. ln a hotly contested game between teams of similar talent, the performance of a single player often spells the difference between victory and defeat. In the first half of Sunday’s East Regional final between No. 1 seed UNC and No. 2 seed Cincinnati, Bearcat guard Nick Van Exel was that one player. Van Exel burned the Tar Heels —and the Brendan Byrne Arena nets in the first 20 minutes, strikingfor2l points on 7-of-14 shooting. He was the difference. In the second half and subsequent overtime period. Van Exel was again that pivotal player for all the wrong reasons. Van Exel struggled with his shooting throughout the second stanza, hitting just 1 -of-10 shots to finish with 23 points. The result: a 75-68 overtime victory and a trip to the Final Four for North Carolina. After Sunday’s up-and-down performance the final hurrah of Van Exel’s brilliant colle giate career many wondered if the real Nick Van Exel would step up. But the fact is, Van Exel was probably too worn down to step up. “I just got tired in that second-half stretch where I took myself out,” Van Exel said. In the East Regional semifinal and final games at the Brendan Byrne Arena this weekend, George Lynch scored 44 points, pulled in 24 rebounds and made seven steals. He came up big—real big in the clutch. And he led his team to two tough wins and a berth in that Final Four he had been thirsting for. “He’s not as flashy as the other guys; he just does the dirty work,” said Cin cinnati head coach Bob Huggins. “He gets position inside and does a good job getting the ball. He doesn’t get the credit he deserves.” Sunday, the 6-foot-8,218-pound for ward got some credit. He was named most valuable player of the East Re gional. “I’ve been playing the last few days the same way I have all season,” Lynch said. “Things probably just look better considering this is the East Re- “They’ve got so many players that they run at you. They were coming after us.” Actually, the “stretch” that he sat out couldn’t have rested him much —it ran from the 11:17 mark to the 10:21 mark of the second half. That’s one minute on the bench, 44 on the floor. “In the second half, I thought he wore down,” said UNC guard Derrick Phelps, the person mainly responsible for the second-half shut down of Van Exel. “He was real tired, and he couldn’t get his shots off.” This is nothing new for Phelps, long-regarded as one of the nation’s best defensive stoppers. After leaving Van Exel much of the first half to give aid to other players in Dean Smith’s help defense scheme, Phelps received instructions not to leave Van Exel in the final 20 minutes. “Early in the game, he was getting off some good shots while I was trapping and trying to help other people,” Phelps said. “Then Coach wanted me to concentrate on him.” Good thinking. In a seven-minute stretch midway through the first half. Van Exel had taken over the game, scoring 15 of Cincinnati’s 17 points in a 17-8 Bearcat run. “If someone’s hitting shots like that every time, you can’t always worry about playing good team defense,” Phelps said. So Smith turned to Phelps. “We started out 'The Daily Tar Heel/Monday, March 29,1993 12 gional.” All year long, Lynch has been there, scoring inside, pulling down rebounds, hitting short jumpers, making key steals. He has been there off the court, steady ing his team, guiding it along with his unflappable team attitude. Sunday, North Carolina found itself up against a Cincinnati Bearcat squad that simply would not let up on its tenacious defense.. The scratching and clawing led to a 29-14 Cincinnati lead when Nick Van Exel hit a 3-pointer at the 7:08 mark of the first half. Lynch had four points at the time. He knew that in order to stop these Bearcats, he had to scratch and claw, just like them. His teammates would follow, just as soon as he took the lead. See LYNCH, page 6 — M . , - _ _ _ _ j punc itiiti Stpp