A Tale of Two Halves

Great game to watch. Exciting to the end. Kansas is lucky they built up the big lead and came back when they did. They let Carolina get far too close. Some takeaways.

1) Brandon Rush. Way to step up and be a leader. You have been criticized for this repeatedly in the past. You really showed your true colors with a great game tonight. Nothing short of a highlight reel game for him.

2) Kansas Guards. Mario Chalmers, Sherron Collins, Russell Robinson and Rush dominated this game. They provided a ton of energy and outplayed Wayne Ellington, Ty Lawson, and Marcus Ginyard throughout the game. Danny Green and Ellington put up some decent numbers, but they didn’t dominate the way the Jayhawk guards did. The Tar Heels shot 18% from behind the arc, and 36% from the field. Pretty tough to win games with numbers like that.

3) Carolina Defense. It was pretty poor. Their failure to block shots was evident throughout the game. They draw a fair amount of charges, and that is important, but when the slashers are as quick as Kansas’, it is hard to get that great position.

4) Resilience. Kansas could have given up a bunch of times in the second half. For a long chunk of time, it looked like they had. But the Jawhawk resurgence at the end was amazing to behold.

5) You have to wonder how North Carolina could have avoided this. They typically play with such energy, and it was incredible to think how Kansas dominated them in the first half. You have to question their strength of schedule, and the fact that all of their tournament games were in front of friendly crowds. Perhaps if they had played tougher teams, or in tougher arenas, they would have been more battle hardened to play a team like Kansas on an objectively neutral court.

Congratulations to the Jayhawks and their revenge against Roy Williams. It’ll be a great game Monday night.

UNC showed they had the heart of a Champion but they could not match up against KUs superior rotation. KU shoots the ball better than Memphis. Both teams ply extermely good D. I expect a low scoring game with the first team to 70 winning it. I am of course picking Kansas.

ROCK CHALK JAYHAWK! GO KU!

I agree with most of what was said, but Kansas was not "lucky" to build up a big lead.  UNC's comeback was precisely BECAUSE Kansas had a big lead.

UNC did not comeback so much as Kansas started to play stupid, as typically happens when you start to think about running out the close with 4 minutes to go in the first half.

Add to that that they were so winded that UNC started to get some space.  Although UNC played much better, and they have to get credit for toughness, it is not like they were draining every shot and getting steals, Kansas just started playing scared.

I think it is telling what happened when the came get reasonably close.  Almost on cue, Kansas steamrolled them again.  Had the game lasted another 5 minutes, it would have been back to 28 points.

UNC totally exhausted themselves getting back to 5 points, and Kansas, due to foul trouble with a few players, suddenly had a completely fresh lineup on the floor against the hodgepodge of players left on the UNC roster who still had their breath.

When it counted, Kansas so thoroughly dominated UNC that one has to question the true quality of the ACC this year.  Duke clearly was not the quality team their record would suggest.  UNC's 2 of UNC's best 3 players might not even start on a Kansas team.

Hansbrough would have been wearing a KU jersey anyway, if not for Williams leaving.

I am sure it is sweet to take Roy apart so completely in front of a national audience, but too much was made about Kansas fans resenting his departure.  Clearly there was something in the chemistry that allowed him to be good at Kansas but not truly great.  His heart was in Chapel Hill all along, and still would be had he stayed.

Most Kansas fans forgave him the minute Bill Self came to town, and most understand why he left.  The Kansas AD was disaster, a problem that is now clearly resolved.