National championship game: Kansas gets the job done in a tournament for the ages
Jayhawks load the wagon, rally past Heels to win NCAA title
Ochai Agbaji (KUAthletics.com)
By Ken Davis
NEW ORLEANS—In 1988, Kansas had Danny and The Miracles. In San Antonio in 2008, it was Mario’s Miracle. Monday night in the Superdome, the Jayhawks pulled off another miracle.
But this one will not be named for any one person.
It was simply the greatest come-from-behind victory in NCAA Tournament championship-game history as the Jayhawks overcame a 16-point first-half deficit to beat North Carolina 72-69 and win the fourth title in Kansas history.
This one belonged to coach Bill Self and his entire team. If Kansas fans want to attach a motto to a remarkable run that ended with 11 consecutive victories, it will be this: “Don’t worry about the mules, just load the wagon.”
That was the saying Self learned long ago from his father, Bill Self, Sr., who passed away during this KU championship season, an event that had a profound impact on the head coach and his players. This veteran Kansas team led by Ochai Agbaji, voted the Final Four Most Outstanding Player, and David McCormack rose up to load the wagon again one last time.
Danny Manning may be the greatest player in Kansas history. Mario Chalmers made the jump shot that sent the 2008 title game into overtime before the Jayhawks beat Memphis. This time it was a total team effort.
Bill Self, Sr. would’ve been pleased.
“I talked to my dad a lot when he was alive, but not as much as he wanted me to,” Self told the media after the game. “And you know, so many parents that are my age grew up with families that lived through the Depression and The Dust Bowl and everything else. And so he always felt that nothing was ever given, everything had to be earned.
“I think he would be very proud of this team because he knows, without question, they earned what happened tonight.”
Kansas (34-6) jumped out to a seven-point lead in the first half, but the headline was North Carolina dominating the final minutes of the half to lead 40-25 at halftime. The Jayhawks deployed some impressive second-half performances during the season, rallying to beat Kansas State in Manhattan during the regular season and blitzing Miami after halftime in the Midwest Region final.
Monday night, this one felt different. It looked bleak. Kansas fans were holding their heads until the Jayhawks returned to the court for the second half.
The long faces did not extend to the Jayhawks. McCormack (15 points, 10 rebounds) was even smiling.
“He was looking at me, and I was like, why are you smiling, dude?” Christian Braun [12 points, 12 rebounds] said. “We’re down 15. He was talking to me. Keep your head up, keep going, we’ll be all right. I was like, man, I don’t know if I’ve ever been here before.”
Braun scored baskets that cut North Carolina’s lead to 48-47. The Jayhawks were back in it. With 10:53 to play, Agbaji (12 points, three rebounds) drove the left side of the lane and scored. He was fouled and completed the three-point play to tie the game at 50.
A 3 by Remy Martin (14 points, 5-of-9 shooting) gave Kansas the lead and then Jalen Wilson (15 points) converted a three-point play to extend the lead to six. Suddenly, the Tar Heels seemed to be showing the wear and tear of their emotional win over Duke in the semifinals.
“I think we’re probably all a little overwhelmed and spent,” said Self, who joined the elite group of coaches to win two or more national titles. “I don’t know that I’ve ever had a team flip the script like we have in the NCAA tournament, whether it be Miami in the Elite Eight or whether it be this game. When your team had to fight and come back the way they did and show that much grit makes this once off the charts.”
The final bit of grit came from McCormack, who easily could have been the MOP. He used his muscle to score the last two baskets of the game after Carolina had battled to take a 69-68 lead.
The Kansas student section of fans sang “We Are The Champions.” And with the Jayhawks standing on the victory podium and accepting the championship trophy, they start to chant, “Load The Wagon.”
That made the entire Self family smile.
“I talked to him the first half,” Self said of his father. “When we’re down six to 10 to 15. I talked to him then. I talked to him at halftime. It was the one time he didn’t talk back.
“I think we’ve got good mules. We’ve got guys that all load the wagon.”
After a wild and crazy tournament, a familiar champion emerges
(SaintPetersPeacocks.com)
By Patrick Stevens (@D1scourse)
At no point before Monday’s national championship game was Kansas the top story of this year’s NCAA tournament.
Hovering over everything from the start of the season—let alone the tournament—was Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski’s pending retirement and the question of whether he could pull a John Wooden or Al McGuire and go out on top.
There was the riveting run of Saint Peter’s, from a first-round upset of Kentucky all the way to a regional final as Peacocks coach Shaheen Holloway re-emerged as a household name for those who remembered him as a Seton Hall point guard (and simply emerged as one for those who weren’t as well versed in fin de siècle Big East basketball).
There was North Carolina’s push as a No. 8 seed to the last day of the season, putting a bow on both the Saint Peter’s and Coach K subplots along the way under first-year coach Hubert Davis and double-double machine Armando Bacot.
The Jayhawks will be remembered. Their 72-69 comeback victory over North Carolina assures it. Their methodical march with a veteran team made for a methodical March (and early April), and the latest in a line of net-snipping exhibits in favor of a more traditional brand of roster construction.
And yet there was almost an excuse-me element to the Jayhawks—at least until the confetti fell in the Superdome in the wake of their fourth national title.
Some of it was already baked in with Krzyzewski’s farewell tour. From the moment the five-time national champion announced his 42nd season at Duke would be his last, the Blue Devils were bound to somehow be an even bigger lightning rod than usual.
And so it was, as seemingly every step Coach K took in Greenville, S.C., then San Francisco, and finally New Orleans was captured for posterity. Duke’s surging offensive cohesion was real, from the final five minutes of a second-round defeat of Michigan State to the second half of a Sweet 16 triumph over Texas Tech to a thorough handling of Arkansas to seal a Final Four bid.
It hinted at the possibility of a retirement party in the Big Easy, only for the Blue Devils to fall to their rivals from 10 miles down the road in the semifinals. Call it one last coaching comparison between Krzyzewski and Dean Smith, whose final game at North Carolina was a Final Four loss in 1997.
Smith, of course, was succeeded by Bill Guthridge for three years. Before this season, Guthridge was the last coach to reach a Final Four in his last season. He was also the last coach to advance to a Final Four in his first season as a head coach. At least until Hubert Davis came along.
Davis took the baton from Roy Williams, himself the pilot of three Tar Heel title teams. Unlike Krzyzewski, Williams walked away after last season and very well may have done so with no ceremony if given the choice. Davis, a member of the Carolina family, received a promotion, but the early returns this year were rocky by Tar Heel standards.
North Carolina was 12-6 after a Jan. 22 loss at Wake Forest, with four losses by at least 17 points. By that point, Davis slimmed his rotation down and the Tar Heels got hot, though the state of this year’s ACC meant eye-popping victories were hard to come by.
The Tar Heels got one anyway March 5 at Duke, playing spoiler for Krzyzewski’s final home game, and shrugged off an ACC tournament loss to Virginia Tech by picking off defending champion Baylor, Pac-12 power UCLA and Duke on the way to the final day of the season. Davis’ debut team did one better than Guthridge’s last, a No. 8 seed that made it to the semifinals in 2000.
These Tar Heels got to the last day, falling a possession shy of matching 1985 Villanova as the lowest-seeded team to win the tournament.
There was an underdog that did something no other team in its position had. Saint Peter’s is the first and only No. 15 seed (out of 148 all-time) to reach a regional final. The Metro Atlantic champions bounced Kentucky (in overtime) and then Murray State in the first weekend, shining a light on a small school in Jersey City, New Jersey with a nifty mascot and a catchy social media hashtag (#StrutUp).
Then, with no more teams from the commonwealth of Kentucky to dispose of, it looked next door and knocked out Purdue for good measure. The Peacocks’ run made household names of KC Ndefo and Daryl Banks and Doug Edert and put Saint Peter’s on the shortlist of double-digit seeds that didn’t reach a Final Four to be instantly recognizable in one or two words.
Think “Loyola Marymount” or “Dunk City” for captivating comparisons.
Those were the striking stories, but Kansas was a worthy champion. It blitzed through its first five games without ever trailing by more than six. It shrugged off a halftime deficit against Miami in the Midwest regional final to win by 26. It led wire to wire against Villanova. And faced with its toughest moment in the tournament—down 15 at halftime to North Carolina—it ruthlessly rallied to tie it in less than 10 minutes.
All five Jayhawk starters were in at least their second season in the program. It was the fourth for Ochai Agbaji, the All-America guard and most outstanding player of the Final Four, and forward David McCormack. Guard Christian Braun and forward Jalen Wilson were in their third season in Lawrence.
It was a team that wouldn’t have been out of place at a Final Four 20 years ago, before the one-and-done rule and long before the transfer portal. Maybe it will be looked back upon as a dinosaur, one of the last of its kind. Or a model for those who would like to build some continuity in an era of significant player movement.
Or maybe it’s both. Or neither. Maybe this Kansas team is just a testament to being good at a lot of things—top 20 in offensive and defensive efficiency (per KenPom), top 30 in effective field-goal percentage and field-goal percentage defense, top 50 at defending the 3 and almost matching that with its own shooting.
Mostly, though, these Jayhawks will be viewed as champions. Perhaps they weren’t fully appreciated during their six-game run as the rare No. 1 seed that could claim it flew under the radar.
Not to worry. The members of this Kansas team will be feted and praised for the rest of their days. The spotlight is there, in the end, and it’s not a bad legacy.
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