Kansas won their 4th NCAA Tournament Championship in program history Monday Night, and their second under Head Coach Bill Self with a 72-69 victory over North Carolina. The Jayhawks trailed by 15 points at the half, but managed to rally for the largest comeback in NCAA Tournament history to secure the victory. Self had one simple message for his team at halftime. “Which would be harder, being down nine with two minutes left or being down 15 with 20?” That is in reference to his 2008 Jayhawks, who pulled off the epic comeback leading to Self’s first National Title.
For a coach that has had his fair share of struggles in March, Bill Self has continued to show why he is among one of the elite coaches in this sport. Winning a second National Championship puts yourself in an elite category as a Head Coach, because only Self and only 15 others have done this. The emotion in Self’s face was apparent after everything both him and the Jayhawks program has gone through in recent years. Self lost his father in January and has been thinking about him throughout this tournament run. Self has said his dad’s favorite quote was “Don’t worry about the mules, just load the wagons”, meaning just get the job done.
That is exactly what Kansas did, as they hit clutch shot after clutch shot, leading to the victory. The Big 12 has now established themselves as the premier basketball conference in the country, winning each of the last two National Championship games, while appearing in 3 straight. Kansas has won the Big 12 in 15 out of the last 18 years in Lawrence and in that span, Self has a 292-15 record while playing at home. Every coach has their fair share of early tournament round exits, but if you keep knocking at the door for long enough, odds are you will hopefully come through.
The Jayhawks overcame some errors of their own including their star Ochai Agbaji only shooting 4/9 from the Free Throw line. The intensity shown on the defensive end by Kansas, was inspiring to see knowing what was at stake. Kansas did not have a player score more than 15 points in the game and still found a way to victory based on their balanced scoring effort. What has always made this Kansas team so appealing, was the number of scoring options and depth that could help them at any time. Monday Night, Kansas had 5 different players score in double digits and each of them made a number of big plays down the stretch.
Senior big man David McCormack, similar to Bill Self has had his ups and downs in his 4 years in the program. McCormack went from being in the dog house and not playing in deciding minutes of big games earlier in the season, to being one of the major keys leading to this title. McCormack’s rebounding down the stretch of this game was key, as he finished with 15 points and 10 rebounds, and still with that North Carolina outrebounded Kansas 49-34.
In addition, Kansas would not have won this game without Arizona State transfer Remy Martin. Remy came into the season with high expectations, as he was named Preseason Big 12 Player of the Year and was one of the most sought out players in the Transfer Portal. For the majority of the season, it looked like Remy wasn’t the ideal fit with this Kansas team considering he was responsible for a lot of the scoring responsibility and now that didn’t need to be the case. Martin started the season by coming off the bench, missed about a month stretch with a significant knee injury and just had trouble getting going throughout the regular season. Martin played in 12 games from December 29th to March 10th without scoring in double digits. However, after a good encouraging performance in the Big 12 Tournament, Martin came through for Kansas in a major way throughout this tournament. After struggling in the first half Martin hit every clutch shot, finishing with 15 points on 4/6 shooting from deep. Every single basket Martin hit in the second half, couldn’t have come at a bigger time. Ultimately, he rewarded Bill Self for trusting and sticking with him throughout the season.
After the game, Bill Self was spotted greeting the section filled up with his former Jayhawk players, letting them know how much they contributed to building the program. In 2020 prior to the Tournament being postponed due to the pandemic, the Jayhawks were set to enter as the number one overall seed and favorite to win. There are still some remains from that squad including Ochai Agbaji, Christian Braun, David McCormack and DaJuan Harris. Each of these guys has improved their games tremendously and came back to Kansas for the moment we saw on Monday night.
Historically, when Kansas’ has had great teams they are filled with surefire NBA players and elite talents. Guys like Mario Chalmers, Brandon Rush, Cole Aldrich, Andrew Wiggins and Joel Embiid have come to Kansas, on the way to very successful NBA careers. This team was filled with guys who weren’t 5-star recruits as Agbaji, Braun, and Harris were all ranked outside the top 80 of their recruiting class coming out of High School. The reality is that since the FBI trials started in 2017, Kansas basketball recruiting has taken a massive hit, which has been covered up by the player development of Self. It is the player development that has separated Bill Self from some of the other great coaches in the sport.
From Devon Dotson to Udoka Azubuike to Perry Ellis to Frank Mason and on, there were plenty of Jayhawks who hadn’t experienced a National Championship win. This team exercised the demons for them coming back from a 15 point halftime deficit.
Although it might hurt now, despite the tough loss North Carolina has nothing to be ashamed of. The Tar Heels run in this tournament was one of the more enjoyable runs in recent memory. From surviving in overtime shorthanded against Baylor, to Caleb Love’s clutch shots against UCLA and Duke, North Carolina played their absolute heart out. What will make this game heartbreaking from the North Carolina perspective, is that so many things went wrong and they still had a very good chance of winning this game. Blowing a 15-point halftime lead in any game is always going to sting badly, especially in the National Title game Caleb Love and RJ Davis shot a combined 10/41 from the field, and only 28 points combined. In addition, Love alongside Brady Manek and Armando Bacot were super banged up. For a North Carolina team that has been playing only their 5 starters for a majority of this tournament, it was just too much to overcome. Hubert Davis did a phenomenal job getting his team to the National Championship game in only his first year. With that being said, Monday was for Bill Self’s legacy and he will go down in a limited class of coaches with multiple National
Zac Krull has covered College Basketball for the last 2 years while working with Aaron Torres of Aaron Torres Media and recording his own Zac Krull Sports Podcast. Currently, Zac is writing as a contributor for Aaron Torres online with weekly articles and working as a producer for the BETQL Network. Zac graduated from SUNY Cortland in 2021 with a degree in Sports Studies.