NCAA Final Four Winners: Villanova Crushes Oklahoma, UNC Beats Syracuse

Villanova easily won its Final Four game Saturday, crushing the Oklahoma Sooners, 95-51, to earn a matchup against North Carolina for the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship game at RNG Stadium. UNC advanced by defeating Syracuse, 83-66.

In the first game of the Final Four games, the Wildcats ended the first half with a 14-point lead, 42-28. For Oklahoma, things only got worse.

Villanova outscored the Sooners in the second half by a cartoonish 53-23, giving them a 44-point margin of victory and distinguishing the game as the most lopsided Final Four in history. The beating was all the more remarkable considering that when the two teams played each other earlier this season, Oklahoma beat Villanova by 23 points, 78-55.

The previous biggest Final Four blowout: 1979, when Michigan State beat Penn by a score of 101-67.

The championship game is Monday night, with TBS pre-game coverage beginning at 7 ET followed by tipoff at 9:19. North Carolina Team Stream will be shown on TNT; Villanova Team Stream's on truTV.

Junior Josh Hart led the way Saturday for the Wildcats with 23 points and 8 rebounds, while senior Ryan Arcidiacono contributed 15 points.

The Wildcats have established themselves as a perennial contender not just in their conference, but on the national stage. Since 2005, they've missed the NCAA tournament only one year, in 2012.

In the school's history, though, Villanova has won only one national championship, in 1985.

They'll try again Monday against UNC, whose 83-66 victory over Syracuse in Saturday's late game came with far more drama than the final score might indicate.

Syracuse played to an 18-18 tie at the 8-minute mark of the first half as UNC hoisted missed 3-pointer after missed 3-pointer, going 0-10 in the first half.

They finally figured out they could score inside, though, and ended the first half with a 39-28 lead.

The Tar Heels built their way to a 16-point lead in the second half before Syracuse went on a mad run to cut the deficit to 7, 57-50, with just under 10 minutes to play and having captured the kind of momentum that led to striking comeback wins against Gonzaga and Virginia earlier in the tournament.

After some back and forth, the Orange were still in it, down by 10 with 5:51 to go.

Three Syracuse 3-point misses later, they were out of it.

UNC will play Villanova for their first NCAA championship since 2009.

Early betting lines put them at a 1.5-point favorite.

Image courtesy Villanova University.