March Madness has spilled over into April and just two teams remain to battle it out for the NCAA national championship as Villanova and North Carolina go head-to-head in Houston.
Villanova, which emerged from the South bracket as the No. 2 seed, is coming in off of a 95-51 thrashing of West winner Oklahoma on Saturday. Josh Hart had a game-high 23 points against Oklahoma, as Kris Jenkins put up 18 and Ryan Arcidiacono notched 15.
Jenkins has paced the Wildcats with 15.8 points and 3.2 assists per game in the tournament. Villanova also defeated UNC Asheville, Iowa, Miami and Kansas to get this far.
UNC, which won the East bracket as the No. 1 seed, enters after defeating Midwest winner Syracuse, 83-66, on Saturday in the Final Four. Brice Johnson and Justin Jackson each had 16 points in the victory, while Kennedy Meeks contributed 15 and Marcus Paige added 13.
Johnson leads the Tar Heels in points (20) and rebounds (9.6) per game thus far in the tournament. UNC also defeated FGCU, Providence, Indiana and Notre Dame to advance to the national championship.
The Tar Heels are in search of their sixth NCAA championship, the last of which came in 2009, while the Wildcats hope to clinch their second, with their inaugural title coming in 1985.
While Villanova dominated Oklahoma to get here, the team's celebration was subdued.
"It was very businesslike," Daniel Ochefu told ESPN. "No one was celebrating. Everyone understands that our next game on Monday we'll be playing a great team and we're not celebrating. We told each other at the end of the game that we have a lot of work to do. We can still get better."
UNC attributes a better all-around defensive effort to its success.
"The last four weeks we've been much, much better defensively," he said per ESPN. "We had a brain lapse there for about three minutes in the second half, but other than that I thought we were really good defensively against a team that's hard to guard."
Game Information
Matchup: South No. 2 Villanova (34-5) vs. East No. 1 UNC (33-6)
Time: 9:19 p.m. ET (8:19 p.m. CT)
Venue: NRG Stadium, Houston, Texas
Betting Odds: The latest betting odds for this game can be found at Sportsbook.com.
Watch Online: This game can be live streamed for free here.
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