A great Championship Monday and a beautiful tournament all around. The Kansas Jayhawks came back from a 40-25 halftime deficit to forge a 72-69 win over the North Carolina Tar Heels.
A great game from start to finish as the Jayhawks won their fourth basketball national championship.
Bill Self becomes the first Kansas coach to win two national championships in hoops.
The fifteen-point halftime lead was the largest lead ever blown by the losing team.
Kansas was just the better, deeper team. Hubert Davis and his team have nothing to be ashamed of whatsoever.
To get to Championship Monday…Carolina, a team which was on the bubble six weeks ago, beat Marquette, defending national champion Baylor, UCLA, St Peter’s and Duke. They came within a play or two or running the gauntlet.
A fabulous NCAA Tournament by the Heels.
Brady Manek had the ride of his life…just two plays short though.
To put how close this game was, keep this in perspective…both teams led the game for 18:32 and the game was tied for the other 2:56 of play.
But Kansas is the better team. Once they got their pace going in the second half, they outscored North Carolina by a 47-29 margin in the final twenty minutes.
A dream season for Bill Self and his family as they struggled through the loss of Bill Self’s father earlier this year.
My guess is at the end of the day the NCAA isn’t going to punish Kansas like they did with Oklahoma State for the Lamont Evans issues.
So…at the end of the day the Big 12 repeats in basketball with a second straight national title, plus the fact Texas Tech made it to the finals two tournaments ago before Covid wiped out a March Madness in 2020.
It’s the toughest basketball conference in the country.
The Big Ten…what a joke. The Big Ten’s streak of not winning a national championship in men’s basketball stays intact to the year 2000 when Michigan State won the title.
Nine teams in this year’s tournament. Not one team advanced beyond the Sweet 16. Not one.
A great tournament though from start to finish.