Did UNC flop, or Kansas triumph in national title game?
It was a game for the ages.
The 2022 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament culminated Monday night with a matchup that fulfilled everything a fan craves in a captivating closer.
It was a thriller from start to finish, highlighted by a resurgent run from each team: First, a 16-0 run from North Carolina that saw a 22-22 tie morph into a 38-22 advantage in a matter of minutes.
And in the second half, Kansas embarked on the comeback trail, shrinking a 15-point deficit to just one with a 20-6 run of its own, before taking hold of the lead, and sustaining it until the game's finish.
The result: The largest come-from-behind championship win in NCAA Tournament history.
"We have a unique group," Self proudly exclaimed. "I think early in the second half, we got some stops and [North Carolina] didn't score, so 15 didn't go to 18 or 19, it went to nine just like that. Guys just kept grinding. That's how we won tonight, and to grind like these guys did is impressive.
"Experience doesn't trump talent, but having both gives you a chance. There were five guys out there that have all had different pasts, but through experience, they were able to play at a [different] level. They bought into those little things, and those little things got it done tonight.
"I don't know that we've ever had a team flip the script like we have in the NCAA Tournament, whether it be Miami in the Elite Eight or this game."
Chris Broussard agreed, stating that he hadn't seen anything like it either.
"This was more about Kansas taking the game than a North Carolina collapse," Broussard said Tuesday on "First Things First."
"I honestly think Kansas subconsciously relaxed a bit after jumping out to a big lead early. There was a lot of talk about North Carolina not being up for this game, and being physically and emotionally exhausted and spent after the big win over Duke in the semifinal. If you look at the first few minutes, and then the rest of the first half, it was almost two different teams.
"But once they went back for halftime, got to relax and breathe again, they were able to right themselves. And they were a completely different team in the second half. … That's why Kansas won."
For Nick Wright, though, the game's final outcome was affected more by the Tar Heels' tired legs.
"If the NCAA Tournament was five 40-minute games, and one 20-minute game, [the Tar Heels] are the champs," Wright said. "NCAA Tournament history says teams over the last decade whose starters have played as much as Carolina's — except Virginia which plays at a snail's pace — always lose in the title game."
Skip Bayless couldn't believe what he saw Monday night.
"In all my years of watching and covering March Madness, I have never, ever seen anything like what transpired last night in New Orleans," Bayless reflected on "Undisputed."
"I just thought it was done, done and done at halftime. … In the first half, the Tar Heels just tarred the heels of the Kansas Jayhawks. They bullied-balled them, punished them, out-physicaled them. It looked like a man-against-boys mismatch. It stood the test of the whole game: They out-rebounded them 55-35, the biggest discrepancy in championship game history.
"Over the last 25 years, when the Tar Heels have had at least a 15-point lead at halftime, they're 161-0. And that happened? It's hard to believe. But as I always say about March Madness, ‘it’s madder than March.'"
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Kansas overcame a 15-point deficit at halftime, the largest in national championship history, to capture its first title since 2008.
Like Wright, Shannon Sharpe's evaluation centered on Carolina as well.
"Carolina blew this one," he flatly stated.
"They didn't handle the pressure in the second half, and if you watched Kansas throughout this tournament, they turn up the intensity in the second half as far as defensive pressure, and getting out in transition.
" … In the second half, Caleb Love was 4-18. RJ Davis was 2-7. Those two, plus Armando Bacot — I understand he wasn't himself, and was gutting it out on that bad ankle — combined to go 6-of-31 for 19% in the second half. If three of your best players play that bad, it's going to be hard for you to win a ballgame."
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The Kansas Jayhawks are champions after defeating the North Carolina Tar Heels. Shannon Sharpe explains how North Carolina blew the game.
Ochai Agbaji took home the Final Four's Most Outstanding Player award after scoring 33 points through the two contests, including a 21-point outburst in the semifinal vs. Villanova in which he went 6-of-7 from beyond the arc.