Kansas staged the largest comeback in NCAA championship history to capture the program’s 4th national title on Monday night. The Jayhawks overcame a 16pt first half deficit to defeat North Carolina 72-69 in miraculous fashion.
The 16pt deficit in the first half was the largest margin ever overcome in the National Championship, surpassing Loyola Chicago’s 1963 mark of 15pts. Kansas also bested Kentucky’s 1998 record of 10pts for largest halftime deficit overcome in the championship game as well.
The Jayhawks came out red hot, scoring the game’s first 7pts. However it was all UNC from there as the Tar Heels got timely basket after timely basket to grow their lead to 40-25 at the break.
It looked as though the game was slipping away from Bill Self’s squad, however a quick start to the second half made things interesting as the Jayhawks put together a 12-1 run of their own to make it a ball game.
Armando Bacot and RJ Davis did their best to hold off the surging KU squad, scoring 15pts each. However the Tar Heels struggled to find secondary scoring in the late stages of the game, as Caleb Love went ice cold, finishing 5-24 from the field and only 1-8 from beyond the arc.
As a team, UNC shot only 21.7% from 3 point land, but managed to hang in against a bigger Kansas team because of rebounding (they won the battle of the boards 55-35 over the Jayhawks) and free throws. UNC made 18 of 22 shots from the charity stripe (81.8%) while Kansas struggled to stay above the Mendoza line going 8 for 14 (57.1%). The Tar Heels also obliterated Kansas on second chance points scoring 28 to the Jayhawks 8.
What ultimately undid the Tar Heels in the second half however was costly turnovers. While the margin wasn’t huge, UNC had 13 turnovers to Kansas’ 9, the ability to convert turnovers into points skewed heavily towards the Jayhawks on Monday.
KU scored 18pts off turnovers and another 10pts on fastbreaks, while UNC managed only 9pts off turnovers and 2 off fast breaks. The transition game, coupled with Love’s shooting slump in the dying minutes were enough to allow Kansas to creep back into the game and take the lead for good.
North Carolina managed to get three heaves at a game tying 3 pointer, however all three failed to find their mark.
Heading into Monday night’s championship game, Kansas had trailed at halftime only once throughout the tournament. In their Elite Eight game against Miami, the Jayhawks trailed by 6 heading into the break, but ultimately parlayed it into a 26 point blowout win in the second frame.
Head coach Bill Self was at a loss for words following the comeback. In his post game availability he managed to point out that the victory was extra sweet because of how the 2020 season ended for the team.
“To me, this was partially won for them too,” Self said of the 2020 team. “It’s partially won for them, because I always thought the 2020 team was better, more equipped to do well in the NCAA tournament…After the way these guys played in the last month, I think this team can play with any team Kansas has ever put on the floor.”
Because of the pandemic, the 2020 tournament was cancelled, denying the Jayhawks a chance to cut down the nets in a season where they likely would have been the betting favourites to win it all. Instead, the party was only delayed, not denied when all was said and done.
The victory marks the 4th national championship in school history, and 2nd under coach Self. The Jayhawks also won in 1952, 1988, and 2008.
Photo: Dirk. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.