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Tar Heels begin moving forward after falling short of title
North Carolina Wrap U Kiew
Fans welcome home North Carolina players and coaches in Chapel Hill, N.C., Tuesday, following the team's 77-74 loss to Villanova in the NCAA college basketball Final Four championship game Monday night in Houston. - photo by AP Photo
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina started the year with a No. 1 ranking, swept the Atlantic Coast Conference regular-season and tournament titles and battled to the final Monday night of the season to play for the national championship.The Tar Heels fell one heart-breaking shot short.Now UNC goes into the offseason trying to move forward from the stinging 77-74 loss to Villanova on Kris Jenkins’ buzzer-beating 3-pointer — which overshadowed a double-pump tying 3 by UNC’s Marcus Paige seconds earlier — that capped a season in which the veteran Tar Heels slowly became the tough-minded bunch coach Roy Williams had pushed them to be.“We had a great run,” Paige said Tuesday to an estimated crowd of more than 3,000 fans who gathered outside the Smith Center to greet the team on its return to campus from Houston. “That’s not quite the way we wanted to end it. . A little bit later we’re going to be really proud about what we did.