The Superintendent!

Rock, chalk, Jayhawk. What a stunning, come-from-behind victory for Kansas in tonight's National Championship game. Down nine points with 1:58 to go in regulation, Mario Chalmers and the Jayhawks went on a 22-8 run over the next seven minutes to cap a furious rally over a self-destructive Memphis squad that fulfilled everyone's expectations by choking from the free throw line late in the game. All-American Chris Douglas-Roberts and presumptive second pick in the NBA Draft Derrick Rose combined to miss four of five from the stripe in the game's last 75 seconds, setting up Chalmers' game-tying three pointer with two seconds to go in regulation. Kansas never looked back in OT, on its way to earning the school's first National Championship in 20 years.


A few quick thoughts before I call it an evening:
* Great officiating tonight; despite the fact that the refs let Joey Dorsey repeatedly grab the ball after made Memphis baskets. Also, Chris Douglas-Roberts could have very easily been T'd up after slamming the ball following a missed free throw with 16 seconds left. I understand why the officials didn't call it, but letting things slide just because they occur in a game's waning moments is a very poor precedent to set. Douglas-Roberts should know better.
* I'm not sure why Billy Packer gets so much crap from everyone; I thought he did an excellent job tonight calling the game with Jim Nantz. (I like Nantz as a play-by-play guy, but I really could do without the cheesy post-victory one-liners like "Rock, Chalk, Championship".) Packer criticizes the officials, something nobody else does in sports. Think about how many times while watching a game you make comments about crappy calls. Very rarely do you hear announcers talk about them. Packer does it all the time. It's honest. He also was lightning-quick to call out defensive switches and substitutions, a lost art these days in announcing. When Kansas went to a box-and-one on CDR, Packer announced it immediately. I can't think of any other color guy who would have done that, with the possible exception of Jay Bilas. (Who would have blathered on about it for two minutes, while likely interjecting a story about the time his Duke team threw a box-and-one on Pervis Ellison in the 1986 Championship).
And bravo to Jim Nantz for not asking Bill Self about the Oklahoma State job after the game tonight. It always makes me mad when a reporter asks a pointed question about the future immediately after a team's season ends. Yeah, a reporter will say it's their job to ask the question and I can accept that. But that doesn't mean it's right. Had Nantz said, "so, Bill, you just won a title at Kansas. Think you'll be trying to win one with your alma mater next year?" what kind of response could he have honestly expected? The only relatively news-worthy comment Self would have possibly made would have been, "Jim, I'm not going anywhere, I'm staying here in Lawrence." But even that's a crock, as Self is definitely going to at least listen to OSU's pitch. Instead, Nantz let it go. The question surely will be asked of Self soon (it was probably asked at his post-game press conference), but I appreciated Nantz's ability to pass up the meaningless query so the coach could enjoy his time on the podium.
Jim Gray was the master of this line of questioning; he'd do it every year to Phil Jackson and Michael Jordan after they won the NBA Titles, and it would upset me even then. Why does everything have to be about the future; a team just won a freakin' Championship. Live for the now, as a man much smarter than myself once said.
* Kansas went 14/15 from the free throw line. They made two more free throws tonight than they did five years ago when they shot twice as many. (If that didn't make sense, in the '03 title game, KU went 12/30 against Syracuse.)
* I'm not positive, but I think John Calipari had a timeout to take after Mario Chalmers tied the game with 2.1 left. Normally, I'm all for pushing it up court in those situations to try and catch the defense sleeping. But, Kansas was having none of that and played solid D on the Clifford Dozier prayer. Calipari will likely regret not taking the timeout to set up a shot. After all, as Grant Hill and Christian Laettner showed, a team can do a lot in 2.1 seconds.
* Two items from my November 19 NCAA Basketball Preview:

Memphis will have the talent to cut down the nets, but will they be prepared when they get their inevitable dogfight in the Sweet 16 or Elite Eight. Will they know how to respond to an early deficit or how to be patient in the second half to wait for the right shot. Can they hold a lead against a team that can actually come back on them? And what of their much-maligned free throw shooting? Can the Tigers step up and knock them down when the game is on the line? Maybe they will bring all these things together in the Tournament, but I wouldn't count on it.

That's not bad, but everyone was making similar predictions at the time. I'm more proud of the fact that I perfectly called Derrick Rose's bank-shot three coming off an inbounds with two seconds left on the shot clock tonight.
* Another prediction from that entry:

National Champion Pick: Kansas
Maybe they'll duplicate Florida's feat of winning the national championship in football and basketball in the same calendar year. I'm pretty sure this is the fourth consecutive year I've picked KU to cut down the nets. (Note: It was actually four out of the past five years. I snuck a Villanova pick somewhere in there)

Unfortunately, I didn't pick Kansas in my pool for the first time in a while either. Maybe I'll pick the Redskins to 0-16 and see if that reverse psychology works. Hmmm..
* As most of you know, I'm a huge Redskins and Wake Forest basketball fan. I'm friends with guys that feel as passionately about the Bears, Eagles, Yankees, Red Sox, and Phillies; and Maryland, Virginia, Michigan and Georgetown as I do about my teams. But my Nouno's (Greek for Godfather) love of Kansas basketball exceeds all that. He grew up in rural Kansas, attended KU and pulls for his Jayhawk basketball teams with a quiet grace that I wish I had when rooting for my favorites. So tonight when I was rooting really hard for Kansas, what I was actually doing was rooting really hard for my Nouno. Rock, Chalk, Jayhawk.