Men’s Basketball: Kansas Wins Fourth National Championship
Monday night in New Orleans was an epic night and the perfect way to bring the NCAA Tournament to an end. The only 1-seed to make it to the Big Easy, Kansas, took on North Carolina, another basketball blueblood but an underdog with an 8-seed.
The game came down to the last few seconds. Kansas won 72-69, giving them their fourth national championship and first since 2008.
Kansas came out fast and strong, just like they did against Villanova two nights earlier. They started with a 7-0 lead and looked like they would take control. Then North Carolina started scoring. The Tar Heels took their first lead with 13 minutes left in the first half. It was tied with just under six minutes to play in the half. North Carolina would go on a 16-0 run over the next four minutes. Those 16 points were the furthest back Kansas was in the game. Never had another team in tournament history come back from that far back to win the championship: Until Monday night.
North Carolina had a 15-point lead at halftime, 40-25. It was a story of two halves. In the second half, Kansas outscored North Carolina 47-29. North Carolina shot 11 for 40 in the second half. Kansas would tie it at 50-50 with 10:53 remaining in the game on a free throw by Big 12 Player of the Year Ochai Agbaji. From there, it was a back-and-forth game with two ties and four lead changes.
David McCormack, the big man for the Jayhawks, had a career-high game on Saturday in the semifinal win over Villanova. He struggled in the first half against UNC but came to play in the second. He scored the go-ahead shot with 1:21 left in the game, then eachanother with 0:22 remaining to put the Jayhawks up by three.
“We just locked in as a family, as a team, and that’s what we do,” said McCormack. “We overcome the odds. We overcome adversity. We’re just built for this.”
McCormack and Jalen Wilson were the leading scorers for Kansas, each with 15 points. McCormack added ten rebounds for the double-double. Agbaji and Christian Braun, both starters, would each add 12 points. Remy Martin came off the bench and scored 14 points. Agbaji was named the Most Outstanding Player of the 2022 tournament.
For North Carolina, four of their starters and one player off the bench would all score in double digits – Armando Bacot (15), RJ Davis (15), Brady Manek (13), Caleb Love (13), and Puff Johnson (11, off the bench).
The win by Kansas gave the Big 12 back-to-back national championships. Baylor won the 2021 championship with an 86-70 win over Gonzaga. It also marked the third straight national championship game that featured a team from the Big 12. Texas Tech lost a heartbreaker in the 2019 championship game, losing to Virginia 85-77. There was no championship game in 2020 due to the pandemic.
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