Here's the story I had begun, when Kansas led by 3 midway through the first half: "If it comes down to the last-second shot, Kansas is in trouble. This team plays hard, and they like each other, and they're generous to a fault. But there's really nobody on that team, except maybe Mario Chalmers, who has the personality and the skills to both want to take the last shot and to actually hit it."

Funny how things work out.

Also funny how both teams played very well, and according to type. Memphis pressured the ball, drove to the basket, hit the midrange jumper and missed clutch free throws; Kansas aggressively defended the perimeter and pounded the ball inside. There were a few outliers—play that game a hundred times more and Derrick Rose is more of an offensive threat; play it a hundred times more and Kansas shoots better than 3 of 12 threes (though, go figure: before Sherron Collins and Chalmers hit those last two three-pointers, Kansas was shooting 1-10; had Kansas lost, we all would have been point to this as one of the reasons why).

Since we've been numbers geeks here all along, we'd like to point out that the Memphis collapse wasn't all that bad; according to the Bill James lead calculator, a 9 point lead with a little over two minutes left to play is only 32 percent safe. Interestingly, this is the same degree of confidence Kansas had when they were up 40-12 with 27 minutes left to play against North Carolina. Of course, Kansas closed that one out.

There is the free throw issue, of course, and though everyone is going to make a lot of noise about how Calipari shouldn't have dismissed his team's poor shooting so lightly, I'm inclined to agree with those who believe free throws have very little to do with winning. Having a team that shoots a high percentage from the line is nice to have, of course, but it's a far less valuable skill than, say, offensive rebounding, which gets your team the most precious commodity in the game—more possessions. And though the misses were easy to point to as the reason for the Memphis collapse, far more important was allowing Kansas to steal the inbounds pass with under two minutes left to play; Collins hit a 3 that brought the score to 60-56.

But enough rehashing. As they say in Bull Durham, the moment's over, and the first midnight scrimmage is only six months away. The big question facing Bill Self now comes in the form of the Devil Boone Pickens with an offer of, well it's an obscene amount of money, really, to coach Oklahoma State, which just happens to be Self's alma mater. Will Self take it? When Devin asked me that last night, I made a not-very-convincing-even-to-myself argument that Bill Self would never leave the greatest job in college basketball. And there are already plenty of columnists saying he should stay put (thanks, Gene Wojciechowski). Still, I think Devin's right. It's a chance to go home, to a school that does have a pretty good basketball tradition of its own (even though their last title came in, ahem, 1946). And, oh yeah, there's maybe Ten. Million. Dollars. 

So maybe he's gone. And really, with no hard feelings; Self is by all accounts a great guy, and he's run a great program at KU.  Still, what shall it profit a team, if it shall gain the whole world, and lose its own coach? Well, hundreds of thousands in merchandise sales, etc. for one thing. A higher national profile. And, maybe a shot at the next up-and-coming coach. You think Mark Turgeon's available?

And now, in our own personal One Shining Moment, I must thank you both for a very nice three weeks of watching and writing about basketball. And I'm not just saying that because my team won. Truly, this is the most wonderful time of the year, made even better with such smart writers to talk it over with. See you all at Midnight Madness.

It is the conventional wisdom among sports fans that the NCCAA basketball tournament is pretty much the perfect sporting event, with the nation captivated as a true champion is forged through eight rounds. That is especially the case when contrasted with the BCS Championship, which insists that the national football title be decided by one somewhat random matchup conceived by computers. So why is it then that I look forward to the football championship game more than I do tonight's basketball final?

It isn't that I prefer football to basketball. It's more that the football championship game, whatever its flaws--and they are legion--at least represents the emotional pinnacle of the season--even if the game proves, as it has the last two seasons with Ohio State overmatched against SEC champins, to be a disappointment. But the basketball tournament works the other way. "March Madness" is a genuine phenomenen and the pinnacle of tournament excitement is the first week with 48 games in four days and pretty much nobody yet eliminated from his or her pool.

The beauty of that stretch of the tournment is that if the game you are watching stinks, CBS switches you to a better game and then maybe an even better game than that. There don't have to be more than a handful of thrillers or a pair of upsets to convince fans that they have witnessed an exhillarating event. But after that, with fewer games and most of us licking our pool wounds, the tournament rises and falls on the quality of the games. And this year, they have been real stinkers.

Since the great opening week, the average margin of victory in the 14 contests has been almost 15 points per game and only two games--Kansas-Davidson and Xavier-West Virginia--were settled by less than double digits. Satruday's semi-finals were particularly horrid with UCLA seemingly rendered semi--comatose by Memphis' blazing attack and North Carolina playing the worst 15 minutes of tournament ball by a high-level team that I can ever recall. And CBS had nowhere to go. That might not have been the case for the viewers, most of whom, I suspect, missed UNC's gritty comeback which put the team in position to play the worst final 10 minutes of basketball I have ever seen. (Note: My pool pick had a UNC-UCLA final, but so did millions of others and even a reversal of the results wouldn't have been enough to put me in contention.)

There's no reason tonight shouldn't be a terrific game, but then again no particular reason it should. Of the eight NCAA basketball championships contested in the 2000s, only two have been close games--North Carolina 75 Illinois 70 in 2005 and Syracuse 81 Kansas 78 in 2005. I didn't pick either Memphis State or Kansas to reach the Final Four;I decided in my infinite wisdom that Memphis's conference schedule did not adequately prepare it for the tournament grind and that their inability to hit free throws would prove fatal and that Kansas' inexplicable inconsistency--we saw it at the start of the second half against UNC--would cost them too much against a good team.

Now forced to take a mulligan, I go with Memphis, with its rare combination of big and fast and a freshman guard, Derrick Rose, who will make some NBA lottery team very happy next year. My picks is especially good news for my fellow blogger Coatney, a hard-core Jayhawk. I haven't been right about much in this tournament and there's no reason to think that I suddenly got smart now. But here's one bonus pick about which I'm fairly confident: the game won't be any more entertaining--and probably far less memorable--than Western Kentucky-Gonzaga in the first round.

The moment I knew Kansas was going to lose to North Carolina came with around seven minutes left in the first half, right after Kansas had just gone up by 28 points. It was then that Billy Packer said "this game is over," and it was then that Kansas started playing like it was, going into a tailspin of offensive fouls, blown dunks and lazy passes that culminated in Russell Robinson jacking up a 1-on-5 three from the corner while the rest of the Hawks were, I believe, talking over the post-game dinner options down on the other end. It was exactly the kind of ragged, sloppy ball you see at the end of blowout games, and the fact that it came when there was still a whole other half to play was, um, problematic to say the least.

It was also the Kansas season in a nutshell. When the Hawks are good, they're very, very good, as ESPN's Andy Glockner demonstrates with some good numbers analysis here. When they're bad, they're—well, you saw it last night.  Which team will show up Monday night against Memphis? Probably both; when Kansas it at its best the offensively the team works through the post, and Memphis is good enough to disrupt that. On the other hand, Memphis is capable of blowing out teams then letting them back in as well; see, for instance, both the Texas and Michigan State games last week.

 Who will win Monday? I'm following both my heart and the good statisticians at Basketball Prospectus, who both make the case for Kansas.

We'd like to first nod in the direction of the enlightened folks at Basketball Prospectus, children of the Enlightenment all, who have used the razor-sharp tools of Reason and Science to determine that UCLA and Kansas will be winners tonight. And, you know, who are we to argue with the numbers crunchers, especially since they crunch so deliciously for Kansas fans?

Elsewhere things are not so tasty. The consensus at ESPN is for a Memphis-North Carolina final, while Sports Illustrated's experts see UCLA and Carolina as moving on tonight. Hmm.
 

From AP:

Tyler Hansbrough, who topped the Atlantic Coast Conference in scoring and rebounding and led North Carolina to the Final Four, was selected The Associated Press college basketball player of the year Friday.

The 6-foot-9 junior forward averaged 22.8 points, the highest mark by a North Carolina player since 1970, and 10.3 rebounds for the Tar Heels (36-2), who were ranked No. 1 for all but six weeks this season and were the overall top seed for the NCAA tournament.

Hansbrough was presented the award the day before the Tar Heels play Kansas in the second game of the Final Four.

Besides being our day of rest, Sunday is the day of my longstanding pickup basketball game. Which begins at 5 p.m. sharp, which means that I didn't watch the Kansas-Davidson game. Mostly. At least in real time. I saw the last couple of minutes in a bar in around the corner after my game ended, and while I would later watch the whole thing, really, I saw the whole contest right there--the Kansas guards playing tight, Davidson making some plays but going through some offensive dry spells, Stephen Curry hitting some clutch shots but missing more through sheer exhaustion.

Later, after reviewing the tape, my thoughts were pretty much the same: That's a good Davidson team, and very well coached. They successfully doubled the Kansas big guys, and it was a really smart strategy, because what they realized is that while the Kansas bigs are tall, great scorers, strong and hit the boards well, they're not very good passers. Still, I think Davidson would be playing next weekend if they didn't have their own Belmont moment late in the game--they only scored, what, 5 points over the last 7 minutes, because they started to get a little tentative. When they were up 4 midway through the second half, I think they did a little bit of that "Holy crap, we're going to the Final Four" thing, and it cost them. Still, it was a great game, best of this weekend, I'd say, in terms of sheer hustle and desire.

That's because the others were such blowouts. Unlike last year, when Florida was the clear leader, in this year's tournament there were four favorites, at once roughly equal to each other and better than the other teams in the draw. Now they're all in the Final Four, which if nothing else should give us three great games next weekend. I'm already sad that the tournament doesn't include a consolation game anymore. Especially since North Carolina-Memphis would be such a great matchup.

Still, looking ahead, what do you guys think? I'm still not a believer in Memphis; they're talented, and well-coached, but UCLA is better, so I have the Bruins moving on, 68-62 over the Tigers. In the other game...hmm. Everyone says that Carolina's defense is the Achilles Tar Heel, but I'm not so sure. Carolina gives up a lot of points because they play at a fast pace that allows the other team more opportunities to score, sure, but a better metric of a defense is the percentage of opposing possessions that result in scores, and Carolina does better there. And we've all seen throughout this tournament how gifted they are offensively.

Kansas can win, though, by keeping up a constant pressure on the Carolina guards; I think they will wilt by the second half, and the pressure should help keep the ball out of Hansbrough's hands. The Jayhawks have four superior defenders who can guard anybody in the Carolina backcourt, and that should be the difference, with Kansas winning 83-80. I'll wait to talk about the championship game until this weekend, but for now, how do you guys see this playing out?