Either the Jayhawks or Tar Heels will have to clear space for another banner in the rafters after Monday night’s meeting.
Two celebrated men’s college basketball programs will compete for the right to add another banner to the home rafters on Monday night. The No.1 seed Kansas Jayhawks and No.8 seed North Carolina Tar Heels will meet for the NCAA Division I men’s basketball national championship at Caesars Superdome in New Orleans, looking to cap a magical run with one more win. The Jayhawks, who took down Villanova in one national semifinal on Saturday night, will be vying for their fourth national championship (1952,1988,2008), and first since defeating Memphis for the 2008 title. Bill Self & Co. find themselves in Monday night’s championship for the first time since losing to Kentucky there in 2012. The Tar Heels, meanwhile, are trying to lift their seventh championship trophy (1957,1982,1993,2005,2009,2017) and first under head coach Hubert Davis. UNC, which will have to turn the page after an emotional victory over hated rival Duke in an epic national semifinal on Saturday night, is attempting to match the 1985 Villanova Wildcats as the lowest seed to win a national championship. To prepare for Monday night’s event, ESPN’s team of Myron Medcalf, Jeff Borzello, John Gasaway and Joe Lunardi identified what to look for in this matchup of blue bloods, and made predictions for which team would come away with the title. Medcalf: I know it’s a cliché, but I think Kansas’ poise has been its most impressive trait. I was thinking about that in Saturday night’s win against Villanova. In the second half, Jay Wright put together an incredible plan to stall KU’s offense and give his short-handed squad a chance. The Jayhawks were on the biggest stage in the entire sport, a 38-19 lead had been cut to single digits and the crowd could sense that it might be watching one of the great comebacks in NCAA tournament history, but it never felt like the Jayhawks were in any real danger. Kansas responded every time, even when Villanova cut its deficit to six points, and subsequently won by double digits. And that has been the tone of this team throughout the NCAA tournament. Creighton had its moments in the second round, but KU’s offense was rolling. Providence took a late lead and Kansas took it back in the Sweet 16. And Miami had a 35-29 lead at halftime in the Elite Eight, and then Kansas outscored the Hurricanes 47-15 in the second half. Throughout this tournament, the best teams have been playing on a scale of 1 to 10, but it just seems as if Kansas can reach a Level 15 beyond what any opposing team has been able to counter. The Jayhawks are measured when they’re struggling, they remain calm when a team is fighting back and they go for the finish when they’re ahead. I think that has been the most impressive element of this team. Borzello: I just think it’s their balance and ability to score efficiently from every area of the floor. In the past three halves in particular, Ochai Agbaji has finally found his rhythm. He was quiet for the first three games of the tournament, including a five-point,2-for-8 outing against Providence in the Sweet 16. But he woke up in the second half against Miami and has been on a tear since then. Against Villanova, he scored 21 points and made six 3s. He was the reason Kansas made seven 3s in the first 14 minutes against the Wildcats — after making seven 3s in a game just once in the past month. But it’s not just Agbaji. David McCormack was unstoppable against Villanova, with 25 points down low. Christian Braun, who was incredible earlier in the season, has bought into his role as a perimeter shot-maker and passer. Jalen Wilson has become more consistent in the NCAA tournament. Remy Martin looked like Arizona State Remy Martin in the first three games of the tournament — he has struggled shooting the ball in the past two games — but Kansas has more than enough weapons to withstand an off-night from one of its top scorers. It’s going to be interesting to see which players North Carolina keys on defensively. Kansas’ David McCormack rises up to throw down a massive dunk over Villanova’s Jermaine Samuels. Gasaway: The most impressive thing about Kansas in the tournament to me has been that this team has won games in wildly different yet equally powerful ways. The current version of the Jayhawks is the one with the incredible offense that ground up both Miami and Villanova into a fine powder. The three dominant and most recent halves featured a KU offense that’s operating at the sport’s performance horizon. Bill Self’s team has hit 18 3s (on just 33 tries) and rung up 128 points in its past 95 possessions. That’s incredible, and the heroes in that stretch have been mostly Agbaji and McCormack from their respective sides of the arc. Then again it was just a few days ago when this same team was winning with defense. The victory over Providence in particular was a good old-fashioned rock fight. Kansas shot 14% on its 3s and missed 22 of 42 tries inside the arc but won by five. That kind of versatility is impressive. It suggests that the Jayhawks will still be formidable in the title game even if their perimeter shots aren’t falling. Lunardi: When a team is bringing the preseason player of the year in its league off the bench, it has a lot of firepower. One through seven, Kansas now has more ways to beat you than any team in the country. Throw in the stifling defense we witnessed in the second half of the Miami game and the first half against Villanova, and it’s not a fair fight. And when the best player, Agbaji, rediscovers his shooting touch, look out. This is the team I picked to win the national championship back in November, not the one that suffered with chemistry issues and without a healthy Martin for much of the regular season. It was easy to cast the Jayhawks aside after the embarrassing home loss to Kentucky, but the season still had two months to go and Bill Self had plenty of time and plenty of pieces to reassemble. Kansas would have beaten Villanova in the semifinals even if Wildcats guard Justin Moore had been healthy. The Jayhawks would have beaten any team in this tournament with their play these past two games. One has to think North Carolina will need to be nearly perfect to prevent a Kansas championship.
