Last night's men's Championship Game between Gonzaga and North Carolina was filled with all the components that made for a great game, horrendous shooting, awful free throw shooting and of course a heaping amount of fouls. The second half in particular was really hard to watch at times and if felt more like one of these teams had to win, as opposed to taking the win.

Gonzaga

For the game, Gonzaga shot a putrid 20-59 (33.9%) from the field and a decent 8-19 (42.1%) from three. When Gonzaga's three point percent is by far the shooting highlight of the night it says a lot.

They were also 17-26 (65.4%) from the free throw line. What killed Gonzaga's chances at winning the title was not their awful shooting, especially in the second half, but the amount of turnovers they had. The Zags much better three-point shooting was offset by their 14 turnovers, compared to North Carolina only having 4. Ironically enough Gonzaga sealed their fate by turning it over with nine seconds left, down by five points.

North Carolina

North Carolina shot slightly better from the field than Gonzaga, being 26-73 (35.6%). However, they were just god awful from three-point land, shooting 4-27 (14.8%). If you do not count MOP of the Final Four Joel Berry II, the rest of the team was 0-14 from three.

North Carolina was also slightly less outstanding from the charity stripe then Gonzaga, shooting 15-26 (57.7%). Basically, North Carolina's awful three point shooting was offset by Gonzaga's turnovers and one of these teams had to win the championship, so UNC got their 6th title and redemption.

The Referees

In the game the referees called 44 personal fouls, 22 for each team.

There were also 52 total free throw attempts. Like I mentioned in the introduction, the second half was almost unwatchable at times due to all the fouls and breaks in the game to watch awful free three shooting. There were a few bad calls in the game that went against both teams, but the costly mistake happened with 49.1 seconds remaining.

With North Carolina up by 1, there was a scramble for the ball that got ruled a jump ball. The possession arrow favored UNC, so they kept the ball, scored to make it a 3 point game and that basically was it. However, replays showed UNC forward Kennedy Meeks with his hand out-of-bounds during the scramble, meaning it should have been Gonzaga ball. The referees missed this, but the play would not have been reviewable anyway per NCAA rules.