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An epic Saturday night in the Final Four has given us an all-time national championship game, with No. 1 Kansas taking on No. 8 North Carolina in Monday night’s final game of the 2022 NCAA tournament.
Kansas, the only No. 1 to advance to the Elite Eight, took care of business in Saturday night’s first game with a wire-to-wire win over No. 2 Villanova. The Wildcats made multiple runs at the Kansas lead, but a combination of Ochai Agbaji, David McCormack and Christian Braun came up with a response to every Villanova run and left no doubt in the closing minutes of the game. Both coaches emptied the benches and Kansas turned its attention to the first national championship game since facing Kentucky in the same New Orleans crowd in 2012.
North Carolina and Duke’s first-ever NCAA tournament encounter created so much excitement that excitement could almost be blamed for both teams’ poor shooting early in the game. But things went back and forth after about 10 minutes and the rubber match between Tobacco Road’s rivals delivered exactly what was hoped for. The 18 lead changes and 12 ties brought all the intensity of college basketball’s greatest rivalry to the game’s biggest stage, but it was Caleb Love’s clutch play that propelled the Tar Heels into the national championship game.
Kansas and North Carolina have faced each other a number of times in the Final Four, including in the 1957 national championship game, 1991 national semifinals, 1993 national semifinals, and 2008 national semifinals. Here’s how the sides stacked up as of Monday night:
(1) Kansas Jayhawks
Midwest Regional Champion
- vinyl record: 33-6
- Final Four appearances: 16 (1940, 1952, 1953, 1957, 1971, 1974, 1986, 1988, 1991, 1993, 2002, 2003, 2008, 2012, 2018, 2022)
- NCAA Title: 3 (1952, 1988, 2008)
- NCAA Tournament Path: First Round – Def. #16 Texas Southern 83-56; Second Round – Def. #9 Creighton 79-72; Sweet 16 – Def. No. 4 Providence 66-61; Elite Eight – Def. #10 Miami 76-50; Def. No. 2 Villanova 81-65.
- coaching: Bill Self enters the Final Four as coach for the fourth time, all coming with the Jayhawks. He won it all on his first visit in 2008, finished as Kentucky’s runner-up in 2012, and was knocked out in the 2018 national semifinals by eventual champion Villanova. With 16 Big 12 regular-season titles in his 19 years with the program , Self has established a model of regular-season consistency unmatched in all of the sport.
- Best player: Ochai Agbaji. The Big 12 Player of the Year does a little bit of everything for this team. He can step outside as one of the team’s best three-pointers or drive the lane to play on the sidelines. On defense, he can be an effective defender on the ball, a defensive rebounder, or a quick break to play on the open floor when Kansas wants to push the pace.
- Strengthen: This is an experienced team that plays with plenty of confidence, producing four seniors, one junior and two sophomores in their seven-man rotation. Two of those seniors have the potential to be the best players on the floor, but we haven’t seen them star at the same time. Agbaji was the Big 12’s top scorer, Big 12 Player of the Year and an All-American, but the tournament has seen the rise of transfer guard Remy Martin, who was named the Most Outstanding Player in the Midwest region, despite being a member of the Bank came on as a sixth man and was absent for most of February with injury problems. Both players are not only capable scorers, but key players in Kansas’ full-back, which will be an X-factor for success in the Final Four.
- weaknesses: After an outstanding performance in the Big 12 tournament, the Jayhawks were a bit patchy in the Big Dance. Single-digit wins over both Creighton in the second round and Providence in the Sweet 16 had some tense moments, but it allowed Miami to jump out to a 35-29 halftime lead that really put those consistency concerns in the spotlight. Of course, this veteran Kansas team responded by beating the Hurricanes 47-15 in the final 20 minutes. But if you’re looking for weaknesses in this experienced and well-rounded team, we’re yet to see a full 40 minutes of his best basketball of the tournament.
- key number:0. Every other team in the Final Four has at least one former five-star contender on the list, and the Jayhawks have none. Self and pundits around the world have frequently begun analysis with some version of the phrase, “This may not be Kansas’ most talented team, but…” before praising the Jayhawks’ 32 victories. It’s odd that a program that has signed numerous five-star prospects and produced dozens of NBA players is one of the least talented teams in the Final Four, but the makeup of that roster — which, for the record, 10 alumni has four-star prospects – could be just what they needed to return to the Final Four and perhaps win another national championship.
- outlook: Losing the 2020 NCAA tournament isn’t a primary motivation for Kansas, but it’s escaped no one on the program that Self and the Jayhawks had the best team in the country at the time the tournament was canceled due to COVID-19. 19 pandemic. Agbaji, David McCormack and Christian Braun were all part of this team and have seen the group carve their way around almost every corner throughout this tournament.
(8) Tar heels from North Carolina
National Champion East
- vinyl record: 29-9
- Final Four appearances: 20 (1946, 1957, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1972, 1977, 1981, 1982, 1991, 1993, 1995, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2005, 2008, 2009, 2016, 2017)
- NCAA Title: 6 (1957, 1982, 1993, 2005, 2009, 2017)
- NCAA Tournament Path: First Round – Def. #9 Marquette 95-63; Second Round – Def. #1 Baylor 93-86 (OT); Sweet 16 – Def. #4 UCLA 73-66; Elite Eight – Def. #15 St. Peter 69-49; Def. No. 2 Duke 81-77
- coaching: Hubert Davis is the first head coach since Bill Guthridge (1998 in North Carolina) to lead his team to a Final Four in his freshman year. The successor to Roy Williams had a difficult start to the season, starting 12-6 overall with no non-conference win to speak of and 4-3 in ACC play, but strong tar heels early in the season put this team out of the bubble, into the field and now all the way to the Final Four.
- Best player: There has been a stylistic change in North Carolina’s lineups with the move from Roy Williams to Hubert Davis, but he has retained at least one traditional great in Armando Bacot who can lead the court. It would be a bad decision not to let one of the best rebounders in the country see as much time on the floor as possible, but it’s been interesting to see how Bacot has embraced modern offensive roles as well. He starts on the edge and floats into the lane, giving him an opportunity to either drive to the basket or step out to one of North Carolina’s capable 3-point options if the defense collapses. The scorer, rebounder and facilitator are all in Bacot’s wheelhouse, making him the best player on the floor.
- Strengthen: North Carolina has four players who can score 20+ goals any night, and this versatility in scoring opportunities makes them a dangerous team to face in terms of game planning. In this tournament alone, guards Caleb Love and RJ Davis have each scored 30 points, Brady Manek has scored 26 or more points twice, and Bacot has had a double-double in every postseason game (ACC tournament and NCAA tournament) that the Tar Heels played this year.
- weaknesses: The lack of competitive depth was fully showcased during Baylor’s nearly 30-4 run in the second half in what would eventually be an overtime victory for the Tar Heels in the second round. After Manek was kicked out midway through the second half and Love caught up with foul problems before the end of regulation, the Tar Heels’ depth problems and matchup problems against elite teams beyond the starting five were on display. There has been a lot of talk about the Iron Five carrying so much weight on game time and playing every minute of the second half to win at Duke, but the other side of the Iron Five is a drop in experience and performance should be one of those five be kicked out of the game.
- key number: 39.1%. This is the 3-point percentage of North Carolina’s win over Duke at Cameron Indoor Stadium. It’s just a few ticks above the Tar Heels’ respectable seasonal average of 36.1%, but in that surge you might find what North Carolina needs to beat Duke again in the Final Four on Saturday night. Though North Carolina improved defensively in March, it’s best not to rely solely on defensive stops to win against the powerful Blue Devils. Timely defensive stops, sure. But North Carolina needs three hits to keep up on the scoreboard and give themselves a chance to win late on.
- outlook: North Carolina is the No. 1 team in the country for adjusted offensive efficiency as of March 1, according to BartTorvik.com, where you can not only see the adjusted efficiency numbers for the entire season but also sort the dataset by date. The seven-game run is absolutely worthy of criticism due to the small sample size, but it also confirms what our eyes told us. North Carolina may not be the absolute No. 1 in the country right now, but it’s playing as well as the country’s best teams since the February calendar switch to March. The Tar Heels are a No. 8 in the tournament, but the quality of play represents a team that doesn’t check in as a #29 through #32 team in the field of 68. Still, the task remains, winning the next game is the biggest at hand.