Santa Clara leaves Tar Heels feeling blue

By Brian Betz

OAKLAND -- It didn't take long for one of the biggest upsets of the year to occur in college basketball.

It was as if the first round of the NCAA tournament had arrived four months early: mid-major Santa Clara defeated highly touted, No. 3 North Carolina 77-66 in a game for which fans saw the Heels shoot just 36 percent from the field.

"I'm extremely disappointed," North Carolina Head Coach Roy Williams said after Friday night's loss. "But I'm not ticked off with my kids, I'm ticked off with myself."

Santa Clara's 6-foot-7 junior forward Travis Niesen scored a game-high 26 points in the interior, tenaciously backing down in the lane to score at will on any of the Tar Heels' post players.

"His aggression sometimes works as a disadvantage because he's so emotional," Santa Clara Head Coach Dick Davey said. "But God, you talk about a warrior. He's not afraid of anybody."

Despite Niesen's 10-for-14 shooting performance, Williams felt it wasn't solely Niesen who defeated them.

"It wasn't one guy that did anything, it was their team," Williams said. "And I think that's the most important thing to them."

The Broncos (3-1), who last season relied heavily on the perimeter shooting of electric guards Kyle Bailey and Doron Perkins for scoring, uncharacteristically came out by challenging Tar Heel posts Sean May and Jawad Williams by routinely feeding Niesen.

"I don't think I'm very good. I just play real hard," said Niesen, who scored nine of the Broncos' first 11 points while the Broncos went 0-for-7 from three-point range in the first half.

Bailey and Perkins still managed 20 and 11 points, respectively. Bailey provided clutch second-half three pointers to quiet any Tar Heel comebacks, while Perkins landed a few circus shots while pirouetting to the floor.

Still, as Santa Clara extended their lead to as many as 19, they knew it was far from over.

"I didn't sense any frustration," said Bailey, a former All-West Coast Conference selection. "They play in the ACC. I don't think they get rattled easily."

Even Niesen, whose unrelenting aggression never calmed, realized Carolina's capabilities.

"When we were up by 11 with four minutes to go I thought 'God, there's so much time left, we could still lose,' " Niesen said.

All-American Rashad McCants finished with 20 points, but didn't heat up until very late in the contest, before fouling out in the closing moments.

"I didn't think he was into it as much as we needed him to be," Williams said. "In the first half he was frustrated, everybody was frustrated. We knew it was gonna' be that kind of game. They're a feisty bunch."

The Tar Heels were without the services of point guard Raymond Felton, who was suspended for playing in an unsanctioned game during the offseason.

"I would love to have Raymond," Williams said. "He's the kind of guy that makes me a better coach."

But Williams, who said his team was both "outplayed" and "outcoached," admitted that he should've had his team better prepared.

"I mean, seriously, look in the game program. There's 10 pages on North Carolina and two pages on everybody else. If I was one of those teams I'd be pissed off. Excuse me, I'd be ticked off," said Williams, who expected Santa Clara to be fired up. "And we've got to have that same kind of fire and we did not have that today."

It was that fire that Perkins attributes to the Broncos' success.

"We came out with good energy that we probably didn't come out with ever before," said Perkins, who agreed that they took the Tar Heels out of their "A" game. "We had a great scouting report. We knew every play that they were going to do. We just had to execute on the offensive and defensive ends. Slow them down and make them take tough shots 'cause they're going to get shots no matter what."

13-year Head Coach Dick Davey opted to start three guards, including freshman Brody Angley. The Redding, Calif., native turned the ball over six times, but was still efficient in managing the offense, scoring eight points while dishing out five assists.

Davey's move to start the freshman didn't surprise his long-time friend Roy Williams.

"No, we thought they'd start Brody," Williams said. "Is it Brody Ang-len? Is that right? Ang-ley?"

Davey said he wasn't worried a bit about Angley's poise, but asserted that playing him at the point guard position allowed Bailey to play his more natural shooting guard position, for which he's "more of an off-guard type of player, scorer."

As the Tar Heels backed off defensively in the closing seconds, it was only fitting that Niesen and Angley, the two unsung heroes of the game, would meet to chest bump at halfcourt as the horn sounded. Niesen cupped the ball in his left hand and hurled it toward the rafters, before tugging on his jersey to ensure fans knew of the two words embroidered across its front: "Santa Clara."

The win is arguably one of the biggest in the Bronco program's history. Davey ranks it second only to his team's victory over Arizona in the first round of the 1993 NCAA Tournament, when the Broncos were seeded No. 15 against the No. 2 Wildcats.

For Williams and the Tar Heels, much is left to be answered if they hope to finish as the Final Four squad that many analysts project.

"As a coach, he's one of my best friends and I think he's as good as it gets," Davey said in reference to his old fishing pal. "And I think this will help North Carolina. I'll be interested to see how they do in Maui."