In the end – the very end – the NCAA Tournament turned out just like predicted.
The best team won.
Kansas, the last No. 1 seed left in a tournament where the story lines were dominated by Cinderellas, played like the best team in the country over the last 20 minutes of the season to win the school’s fourth national championship, 72-69, over North Carolina.
Down by 38-22 with just over two minutes left in the half, and trailing by 15 at the break, the Jayhawks orchestrated the biggest comeback in NCAA Championship game history.
For you history freaks, Loyola Chicago trailed Cincinnati by 15 points but came back to win the title in 1963. Kentucky trailed Utah by 10 at halftime of the 1998 championship game before coming back to win, the largest halftime deficit in title game history until last night.
And while Kansas and North Carolina are two of the elites in college basketball history, the Tar Heels – a team that has been to more Final Fours than any team in the NCAA, and has won the third-most titles – carried the banner of the underdogs. UNC was only the fourth eighth-seed to reach the championship game, and would have matched Villanova (1984) as the lowest seed to win the national title had the last four seconds gone differently.
When the second half started, it looked like Carolina had the game in hand with a 40-25 lead. The Tar Heels were 21-0 this season when leading at halftime.
However, in the second half, Kansas seemed to remember how it had earned that No. 1 seed. Once the Jayhawks started running, they wore the Tar Heels down. Kansas opened the second half out-scoring Carolina 20-6, out hustled the Tar Heels 14-2 on turnovers, and looked ready for their One Shining Moment.
Kansas made 58% of its shots in the second half while Carolina only made 28%. That was the story of the tournament for the Jayhawks, who seemed able to elevate its game when Kansas needed to, to a level no other team could match.
Still, with five seconds to play, it was anybody’s game. Kansas had a 72-69 lead and Carolina was forcing up three-point shot after three-point shot, none falling, until the Heels’ Brady Manek threw the ball out of bounds and Kansas fans started celebrating.
Then the unthinkable happened. The Jayhawks Christian Braun inbounded the ball to Dajuan Harris, but Harris – racing down the sideline – stepped out of bounds and Carolina had the ball back with 4.3 seconds to play, which can be a lifetime in basketball.
Unfortunately for the Tar Heels, Caleb Love’s three-point attempt was short, and Kansas started celebrating for real.
“In the second half, their pressure just bothered us,” first-year UNC coach Hubert Davis said after the game. “They stepped it up both ends of floor. They just wore us down. We had a chance. But we came up short and they made more shots than we did.”
Davis became the fifth UNC coach to take the Tar Heels to the championship game, and is just the sixth coach in history to reach a title game in his first season. Michigan's Steve Fisher (1989) is the only coach to win it all in his first year.
David McCormack led Kansas with 15 points, including the go-ahead basket with 23 seconds left. Jalen Wilson added 15 points and Remy Martin 14 for the Jayhawks. Ochai Agbaji, the Big 12 Player of the Year, was named the NCAA tournament’s Most Outstanding Player. The senior guard recorded 12 points and three rebounds in the win.
Armando Bacot scored 15 points with 15 rebounds for UNC, becoming the first player in NCAA history to record double doubles in all six tournament games. RJ Davis added 15 points, Brady Manek and Caleb Love 13 points and Puff Johnson 11 for North Carolina, which failed in its bid for a seventh NCAA crown.
Kansas won its fourth NCAA title in history, the second under head coach Bill Self. The Jayhawks also won in 2008, 1988 and 1952.
