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sports Dialuna 4 aPRil 2022

North Carolina to face Kansas in blue blood title game

(AP) — The Big (blue) Four appearances, pulled out the Blue Devils in their first
Easy has one more bit of a back-and-forth 81-77 vic- NCAA Tournament meeting
bedazzling in store. tory over Duke to end Coach in 258 all-time games. Caleb
K’s 47-year career with a loss Love continued his star turn,
North Carolina and Kansas, to his biggest rival. The Jay- hitting a key 3-pointer down
basketball blue blood run- hawks (33-6) have more wins the stretch and scoring 28
ning deep in their veins, are than any Division I team points in a game that featured
headed to the national cham- in history, up to 2,356 after 18 lead changes and 12 ties.
pionship game. beating Villanova 81-65 in
the first national semifinal Kansas and North Carolina
The Tar Heels got there by Saturday night. will meet in the champion-
spoiling Mike Krzyzewski’s ship game for the first time
fairytale ending with a gritty They’ll meet Monday night since 1957, a triple-overtime
performance in an historic ri- in the Big Easy with a chance classic won by the Tar Heels
valry game. Kansas put coach to add to their storied lega- 54-53 over Wilt Chamberlain
Bill Self in position to win cies. North Carolina will be and the Jayhawks.
the second title he’s waited so playing for its seventh na- game, another in the Final an inside game that out-
long for with a 3-point bar- tional championship. Kansas Now, the Tar Heels get a Four, five other trips to at scored the Wildcats by 16 in
rage against another national is looking for No. 4. chance to add yet another ti- least the Sweet 16. the paint. Ochai Agbaji keyed
powerhouse. tle to the one they won under the 3-point barrage, hitting 6
“I felt like over the last two or Roy Williams in 2017. The 2019-20 Jayhawks may of 7 to score 21 points. Kan-
The first course was delight- three years, North Carolina have been Self’s best team, sas went 13 for 24 from be-
ful. The main could be ex- wasn’t relevant,” Tar Heels “I don’t know if it was belief but they never got a chance to hind the arc, nearly doubling
traordinary. coach Hubert Davis said. or it was just us being delu- prove it when the pandemic its 3-point shooting percent-
“North Carolina should nev- sional. I mean, at every point wiped out the NCAA Tour- age during the regular season.
“You come to Kansas for big er be irrelevant.” of the season we knew if we nament.
games, but you don’t come came together as a team that “Even after this game, even
to Kansas to play in the Elite The Tar Heels got their first we could get to the champi- This year’s version does not after last weekend, the week-
Eight,” said Jayhawks guard season under Davis off to a onship,” said North Caro- have quite the same wow fac- end before that — every-
Christian Braun, who had 10 shaky start, looking as though lina big man Armando Bacot, tor, but was one of the most one’s attitude was, on to the
points against Villanova. “You they weren’t even going to who had 11 points and 21 re- efficient offensive teams in next one,” Agbaji said. “And
don’t come to Kansas to play make the bracket. North bounds despite spraining his the country. not looking too far ahead at
in the Final Four. You come Carolina found the right gear right ankle in the second half. what’s going on Monday.”
to play for a championship.” at the right time, though, “And that’s what we did.” The Jayhawks flexed their
rolling into the biggest game inside-out game to near per- Now they can.
Same at North Carolina. in Tobacco Road rivalry his- The Jayhawks won the 2008 fection in the national semifi-
tory. title in Self’s fifth season in nals against Villanova. It will be unforgettable for
The Tar Heels (29-9), third Lawrence, but it’s been a lot one team and, possibly, ev-
on the wins list and the all- North Carolina saved its best of deep title-less runs since: David McCormack bulled eryone else, too.
time leader with 21 Final for next-to-last, taking down a loss in the championship his way to 25 points and led

MLB looking at electronic system for calling pitches

(AP) — Imagine Clayton Ker- catcher wears a wristband with nine eral potential changes MLB is explor- stealing scandal.
shaw on the mound in Game 7 of buttons for calling the pitch and lo- ing this year. There will be bigger
the World Series, peering in at his cation. There is a receiver in the bases, pitch clocks and limits on pick- MLB’s investigation found Houston
catcher at a big moment. And his pitcher’s cap, and another one in the off attempts for every full-season af- used a video feed from a center-field
catcher flashes ... no sign at all. catcher’s helmet. Multiple languages filiate in the minors. Defensive shifts camera to see and decode the op-
are available for the encrypted chan- have been banned for each Class A posing catcher’s signs during home
That day could be coming very soon. nel. level and Double-A. games. Players banged on a trash can
to signal to batters what was coming,
Major League Baseball is stepping New York Yankees manager Aaron College baseball is already using an believing it would improve the bat-
up its experimentation with an elec- Boone even tried a little experiment electronic system for calling pitches. ter’s odds of getting a hit.
tronic communication channel for with the experiment. An hour before With Game Day Signals, the calls are
pitchers and catchers. After trying out Saturday’s game against Atlanta, he relayed from the dugout to a receiver Cease said sign-stealing has been a
the PitchCom system at Low-A West told starting pitcher Luis Severino on the pitcher’s wrist. concern for him for the past couple
in the second half of last season, big they would try the system with catch- of years, especially with a runner on
league clubs are tinkering with the er Kyle Higashioka. MLB also wants to speed up play. second.
technology during spring training. The average time of a nine-inning
Severino seemed fine, too, pitching game during the 2021 regular season With PitchCom, “it’s basically I only
If the development is met with wide- four innings of one-hit ball. was a record 3 hours, 10 minutes, have to worry about what I’m doing
spread acclaim, the system could be 7 seconds, up from 3:07:46 for the in terms of if I’m giving away any-
used in the majors this year. But the As far as using it someday in the reg- pandemic-shortened 2020 season and thing with tipping, as opposed to ‘Are
current plan is to work it in at the ular season, “I want to keep flushing 3:05:35 in 2019. they breaking the code?’ like it’s war,”
Double-A level this summer. that out the best we can. But my first Cease said.
impression of it, I feel like we’re on When players are on base, especially
With the PitchCom system, the to something. I thought it was really at second, the game can bog down as Any chance of using the system in the
good,” Boone said. pitchers and catchers switch up signs majors this year could be hurt by the
in an effort to shield the calls from abbreviated spring training after the
Baltimore Orioles pitcher Bruce their opponent. With an electronic 99-day lockout. Teams don’t have as
Zimmermann concurred. channel, that would no longer be an much time to try it out as they would
issue. normally.
Orioles catcher Anthony Bemboom
also offered a positive report, with a The system also could eliminate sign- Chicago Cubs manager David Ross,
few concerns. stealing altogether, a major perk for a former big league catcher, said he
MLB after the Houston Astros’ 2017 isn’t sure it will speed up the pace of
The PitchCom system is one of sev- championship was tainted by a sign- the game.