Before the NCAA tournament, Theo Pinson changed out his screensaver to a picture of himself, in the immediate aftermath of last year’s title game – a constant reminder of the pain he felt in the wake of that loss.
As they have progressed toward this spot, to another chance at a championship, North Carolina’s players have deflected – gently at first, then more directly – inquiries about what happened last year, and how it relates to them.
New season. New team. New opponent. So they say.
And yet there’s no denying that this game is on a continuum with that one, that one cannot exist without the other, that they are linked not only by circumstance but by the way the first directly propelled these players back to the second, at times perhaps without them even realizing it, at other times most explicitly.