Brice Johnson had 21 points and 10 rebounds, and No. 1 seed North Carolina pulled away from foul-hit Providence, 85-66, on Saturday night in Raleigh, N.C., in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
Joel Berry II added 15 points for the East Region’s top seed, which found itself in a fight well into the second half against the Friars’ high-scoring duo of Ben Bentil and Big East player of the year Kris Dunn. But the Tar Heels (30-6) stepped up their offensive efficiency, attacked the paint, and started cashing in at the line as the fouls piled up for Providence (24-11).
Justin Jackson scored on a drive to start an 8-0 run that broke a 41-all tie, and then Johnson scored 6 straight points in the 10-0 burst that put the Tar Heels up 17 with 6½ minutes left.
North Carolina shot 61 percent after halftime and 53 percent for the game, and made 19 of 21 free throws. And that was enough to help the Tar Heels advance to the Sweet 16 for the second straight year after two straight opening-weekend exits.
Dunn had 29 points for the ninth-seeded Friars, though he sat much of the first half with two fouls and picked up his fourth while trying to strip Johnson in the lane with 8:44 left. Bentil fouled out on a rebound attempt with 7:23 left, finishing with 21 points.
No other Providence player reached double figures.
Providence shot 40 percent, but made 6 of 23 3-pointers and missed nine free throws — costly missed chances for a Friars team relying largely on two scorers to try to keep pace with the Tar Heels’ deep attack.
While Johnson and Berry led UNC’s offense, the Tar Heels also got 15 points from Jackson, 13 from Isaiah Hicks and 12 from Marcus Paige in the kind of wear-you-down-and-pull-away formula that pushed them to a No. 1 seed.
Providence came to North Carolina searching for its first NCAA Tournament win since 1997. It got one on Rodney Bullock’s last-second basket to beat Southern California, and then stayed right with the Tar Heels through the first half to trail just 34-30 at halftime.
Dunn’s steal and dunk even gave the Friars a 36-34 lead early in the second half, but the Tar Heels eventually settled in and started pulling away.
Indiana 73, Kentucky 67 — Freshman Thomas Bryant scored 15 of his 19 points in the final eight minutes, Yogi Ferrell had 18, and the fifth-seeded Hooosiers beat the Wildcats in Des Moines, Iowa, to earn a spot in the regional semifinals.
Indiana (27-7) is back in the Sweet 16 for the first time since 2013 despite losing starting guard Robert Johnson to an apparent left ankle injury late in the first half. Indiana took control with a 17-4 run to go up 10 with four minutes left. Tyler Ulis and Alex Poythress pulled Kentucky within 69-67 on free throws, but Bryant hit two from the line with 10 seconds to go to seal the win.
Ulis scored 27 points for Kentucky (27-9), which suffered its earliest NCAA Tournament exit since 2008 — when it lost to a Marquette team then led by Crean.
Jamal Murray added 16 for the Wildcats, but he was just 1 of 9 on threes.
Indiana went on a 9-2 run with Ferrell on the bench after he picked up his third foul. Ferrell quickly went back in, and the Hoosiers pushed their lead to 62-52 on a Bryant dunk.
‘‘I had to just stay on the attack. Coach [Crean] told me he wanted me to attack more and get a quick bucket down on the block when I can. He believed in me. I just went with the coach’s plan,’’ Bryant said.
It had been four years since these once-longtime rivals had faced each other; a Sweet 16 game that Kentucky won, 102-90, on its way to a national title. This one had the feel of an Elite Eight-type matchup from the opening basket.
Still, Indiana was lucky to go into halftime ahead, 33-32.
Johnson went to the locker room with five minutes left after hitting a pair of early threes, and Ferrell took 12 minutes to knock down a bucket. But the Wildcats went nearly five minutes without a basket to close the first, allowing the Hoosiers to inch out in front.
Indiana pushed it to 6 before Murray and Ulis threes pulled Kentucky even at 38-all. But that would prove to be Murray’s last made three, and an Anunoby trey with 6:53 left put the Hoosiers back on top, 56-50.
Williams had 13 for Indiana.
‘‘I know that sounds corny, but I just love coaching them,’’ Crean said.
Midwest Regional
Virginia 77, Butler 69 — Malcolm Brogdon scored 22 points and the Cavaliers used some hot second-half shooting to beat the Bulldogs in Raleigh, N.C.
Anthony Gill added 17 points and Marial Shayok finished with 12 for the top-seeded Cavaliers (28-7). They shot 73 percent after halftime, hitting 14 of their first 16 shots of the second half, and advanced to the Sweet 16 for the second time in three years. They will face Iowa State in the Midwest semifinals in Chicago.
Andrew Chrabascz scored a season-high 25 points for ninth-seeded Butler (22-11). Roosevelt Jones pulled the Bulldogs within 72-69 by hitting the first of two free throws with 36.2 seconds left. He missed the second, Shayok pushed Virginia’s lead back out to four with a free throw with 28.3 seconds left and Kellen Dunham’s 3-pointer with 12 seconds left bounced away.
Jones had 18 points, but Dunham, the Bulldogs’ leading scorer, was held to 8 — his lowest-scoring game since he also had that many in a loss to Providence on Dec. 31.
Gonzaga 82, Utah 59 — Leave the buzzer-beaters and heart-stoppers to the other guys. For the Bulldogs, these are the March Mismatches.
Gonzaga, looking like something much different than an 11 seed, rolled over the No. 3 Utes behind 22 points from Eric McClellan and a 19-point, 10-rebound effort from Domantas Sabonis. This was a wire-to-wire effort even more impressive than their 16-point win over Seton Hall in the first round.
Next up for the Zags (28-7) in the Sweet 16 will be Syracuse or Middle Tennessee.
Kyle Wiltjer had 17 for Gonzaga, and went 3 for 4 from 3-point range. This game was billed as a battle of big guys, between the 6-foot-11-inch Sabonis and Utah’s 7-footer, Jakob Poeltl. That fizzled. Poeltl finished with 5 points and four rebounds.
On Utah’s first possession of the second half, Poeltl posted up and tried the hook. Sabonis, who had a block and two steals to go with his 22d double-double of the season, redirected it and the ball never got to the glass. A few minutes later, McClellan converted a steal by Kyle Dranginis into a layup and a 3-point play to push Gonzaga’s lead to 20.
Iowa State 78, Arkansas Little Rock 61 — Georges Niang scored 28 points and the fourth-seeded Cyclones rolled past Trojans in Denver to advance to their second Sweet 16 in three years.
Niang, the winningest player (97) in Cyclones history and Iowa State’s only two-time All-American, was simply too much for the 12th-seeded Trojans (30-5) of the Sun Belt.
Led by Roger Woods’s 19 points, the Trojans kept things close for much of the first half, and Kemy Osse’s 3-pointer pulled Little Rock to 26-24. Niang responded by doing all of the heavy work in a 10-0 spurt that helped the Cyclones (23-11) grab control for good.
South Regional
Kansas 73, UConn 61 — Wayne Selden Jr. and Perry Ellis carried the Jayhawks on a romp to the round of 16, combining for 43 points in a blowout that handed Kevin Ollie his first NCAA Tournament loss as Huskies head coach.
Selden had 22 points and seven rebounds, Ellis scored 21 points and grabbed eight rebounds and the No. 1 overall seed Kansas (32-4) advanced to the South Region semifinals on Thursday in Louisville, Ky., to play the winner of the Hawaii-Maryland game. Selden and Ellis combined to shoot 17 for 27 from the floor, shooing away the disappointment of second-round defeats in each of the last two years.
Sterling Gibbs had 20 points for the No. 9 seed Huskies (25-11), who fell into an irreparable deficit that reached 24 points in the first half.
After winning the 2014 national championship in Ollie’s second season as a No. 7 seed, the Huskies returned two years later.
Miami 65, Wichita State 57 — Angel Rodriguez took over after the third-seeded Hurricanes blew a 21-point lead midway through the second half, hitting a big 3-pointer with 72 seconds left and scoring 28 points to lead Miami past the Shockers in Providence to advance to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament.
The Hurricanes (27-7) will play Iowa or Villanova next weekend in Louisville in the South Region semifinals.
Fred VanVleet and Shaquille Morris each had 12 points and Ron Baker 11 for 11th-seeded Wichita State (26-9), which put on a furious rally in the second half of a bruising game, taking a 43-42 lead with 10:24 to go.
After Baker’s 3-pointer gave Wichita State its first lead, Ja’Quan Newton had a slam dunk to put Miami back on top and McClellan scored 8 straight points for some separation. McClellan nearly gave it away, though, when he failed to convert a lob from Rodriguez with 2:59 left and Miami clinging to a 55-51 lead.
Rodriguez came back with a stunning hook off the glass for a 57-53 lead with 2:05 left and followed with his clutch three from the wing.
‘‘There was a lot on the line. Obviously, everybody wants to advance,’’ said Rodriguez, who was 9-for-11 shooting and had five assists and four steals. ‘‘I just felt good.’’
