Last night, the Kansas Jayhawks made history with the largest comeback win in NCAA Tournament Final game history as they beat UNC 72-69 after trailing by 15 at the half. In the Loon bracket competition, LoonMush made a similar comeback after posting a brutal first round score.
Before we congratulate Mush or whatever, let’s talk about the game. Kansas scored the first seven points of the night, but once UNC got going, the really got going. They were quicker, bigger, and stronger than Kansas in the first half and they shot the ball better too. Caleb Love and R.J. Davis seemed to make every jumper they took, Armando Bacot was doing his best Tyler Hansbrough impersonation, and Brady Manek looked like a guy that’s gonna play pro ball in Latvia for 17 years. Leaky Black was there too, I guess and UNC went into the break up 40-25.
Then, the second half came, and like they did against Miami, Kansas put on the jets. They were more intense on defense and created turnovers and fast break looks. David McCormack got to work and suddenly Remy Martin and Justin Wilson were making crazy shots instead of missing layups. On the UNC side, Love and Davis started settling for deep, off- platform threes, Bacot stopped going hard to the hole, and Manek looked like a guy that’s gonna play pro ball in Latvia for 17 years. In short, two completely different teams took the court after halftime, and despite the Jayhawks’ best attempt to give Carolina a look at overtime, Kansas took the game by three.
It just seemed like Carolina didn’t have the depth to keep up with the Kansas onslaught. Both teams keep their rotations pretty tight, but the Tar Heels really only play six guys and most of them were hampered in some way throughout the game. Bacot came in with an ankle problem and reinjured it, keeping him off the floor for McCormack’s late jump hook. Caleb Love twisted his ankle. Manek may have been concussed. Mini Cam Johnson played out of his mind to keep UNC in the game, but then immediately yarfed on the court. And still they had multiple shots to win or extend the game. Kansas deserved to win this game, but you can hardly blame the battered UNC squad for coughing (puking?) the lead away.
Congrats LoonMush!
With last night’s heartbreaking result (for me), LoonMush, who picked Kansas as his champion, has won The Road to the Final Loon bracket contest. He is the smartest Loon.
Here’s the final result:
As you can see, there are three of us Looners that know what we’re doing and three that very much don’t. Realistically, that only means that three of us picked Kansas to go far and the other three didn’t, but it’s still embarrassing that LoonBeast and LoonMagz couldn’t even make it to the 40th percentile.
And SlimLoon played too.
loonstatesports.com 