Men's NCAA championship: Jayhawks played for more than themselves

By Andy Katz
FOX Sports College Basketball Analyst

NEW ORLEANS — Devon Dotson entered the Kansas locker room late Monday night wearing a championship hat.

It was Bill Self’s hat.

Self gave it to Dotson after the Jayhawks completed the biggest comeback in title game history, from down 15 at halftime, to beat North Carolina 72-69 and claim the national championship.

Dotson, who has played for the Chicago Bulls and in the G-League, was on the 2020 Jayhawks squad, along with Udoka Azubuike and Marcus Garrett, two national defensive players of the year. That Kansas team was heading into the NCAA Tournament as the likely No. 1 overall seed, the favorite to win the program's first title since 2008.

But it wasn’t meant to be for Kansas, for any of us, as the world shut down due to the global COVID-19 pandemic.

Two years later, the Jayhawks are national champions, thanks to a brilliant second half against North Carolina.

"They say things happen for a reason," Self said in a hallway just outside the Kansas locker room. "There’s no guarantee to win anything in this tournament. I just wish Dok and Marcus could be here tonight."

Self said he felt awful for them when the 2020 postseason was canceled. No doubt, there were plenty of coaches and teams that felt the same way. But this Kansas team still has many of the pieces from that 2020 squad, and that is a major difference from some of the others. Rosters change — players graduate, they transfer, some get drafted. There are countless issues that prevent teams from being in position to win a title after missing out on one.

Programs such as Kansas usually are in the mix because of the talent they consistently corral.

Ochai Agbaji is one of those talented players. He was supposed to redshirt his freshman season in 2018-19 but was pressed into service when Azubuike got hurt. The senior big guard was named the Most Outstanding Player of the 2022 tournament. He was the only Naismith and Wooden Award finalist who made the Final Four.

"I’m not doing anything else besides hard work," Agbaji said while holding the national title trophy. "To see this pay off is so special. Kansas has my heart now.’’

To win the title, there needs to be some luck on your side or, at the very least, some good fortune — and at times, unfortunately, it comes at someone else’s expense.

The Tar Heels had a tremendous run to the title game, navigating arguably a more difficult road with games against Marquette, reigning champ Baylor, UCLA and then Cinderella dressed in a Saint Peter’s uniform. Oh, and then in the national semifinal, UNC had to play archrival Duke for the first time in the NCAA Tournament.

Armando Bacot was sensational this week in New Orleans, playing through a turned ankle that he injured again late in Monday's game. That left Bacot in tears, sobbing into his towel when he knew he couldn’t go back in for the final minute. During that time, Kansas big David McCormack scored in the low block for the final bucket. 

Would it have occurred if Bacot had been in the game? Maybe, but maybe not.

The Tar Heels were also playing with a hobbled Caleb Love and a winded Puff Johnson, who came off the bench to score 11 points but played much of the second half while dealing with a shortness of breath after taking a blow to the stomach.

Yes, the Tar Heels blew a 15-point halftime lead, but they finished their season with memories for a lifetime that included ending coach Mike Krzyzewski’s career at Cameron Indoor Stadium and in the Final Four with wins that will go down in Carolina history.

First-year coach Hubert Davis did a tremendous job leading the Tar Heels through at times turbulent waters. His first year nearly ended with a title.

"I told the team I can’t remember a time when I was supposed to feel disappointed, but I was filled with thankfulness," Davis said before the postgame news conference. "I’m so proud of them. They had toughness and a willingness to fight and be the best team they could be. They gave this program and gave themselves everything they had."

Kansas last won a title in 2008, when Self’s crew beat Memphis in overtime after Mario Chalmers hit a shot at the buzzer to send the game into OT.

The Jayhawks made Final Four appearances again in 2012, here in New Orleans, losing to Anthony Davis and Kentucky, and again in 2018, falling to eventual champ Villanova in the national semifinals.

But this was their next best shot after 2020 was taken away.

One of the missing pieces was getting Arizona State lead guard Remy Martin, who was on the floor when the Sun Devils beat then-No. 1 Kansas in Tempe in 2018. Martin struggled this season with a knee injury after being named the Big 12 preseason player of the year. But he emerged at the right time, leading the Jayhawks to the Midwest Regional title as the region’s MVP. 

And then, after scoring just three points in the semifinal against Nova, Martin made four huge 3s to finish with 14 points in the title game.

"I realized in the offseason when I came here that we could do something special," said Martin, who had the honor of putting the Kansas name on the final bracket on the podium at the Superdome. "Coach Self had tremendous trust in me and me in him. This feels great. I’ve been injured and had my ups and downs. I’m just so happy to win a national championship. I love Kansas, and I love my teammates."

Kansas’ homecourt at Allen Fieldhouse and its fan base are among the best in the country. The Jayhawks expect to compete for titles, but as Self said, these "don’t fall off trees. They are hard to get, and if I’m not mistaken, only a handful of teams have won two in the last 14 years."

That would be correct: Duke and Coach K won in 2010 and 2015, North Carolina and Roy Williams in 2009 and 2017, UConn in 2011 (Jim Calhoun) and 2014 (Kevin Ollie), Nova in 2016 and 2018 under Jay Wright, and now Kansas in 2008 and 2022.

Self, a Naismith Hall of Fame member, got Kansas through the rugged and daunting Big 12 to share the title with Baylor. The Jayhawks were a No. 1 seed and the only one to get to the Final Four.

And Self got here, and then won, with a heavy heart after his father, Bill Sr., died in late January.

"I know he’s so proud and proud of these guys," Self said. "My parents grew up in the Depression. They had that no-lunch mentality. You get what you earned. He loved this team."

This team earned every last drop of this title.

And in a season in which the fans were back, the madness certainly returned, with a 15-seed making the Elite Eight, Coach K’s retirement, Duke-UNC and late-game drama that captivated us all. 

In the end, a blue blood rose up and won the championship with an epic comeback.

The script is never what we predict, but the ending is almost always the same: a deserving champion that has a story worth telling.

And we’ll do it again in 2023.

Andy Katz is a longtime college basketball writer, analyst and host. He can be seen on FOX Sports and Big Ten Network platforms, as well as March Madness and NCAA.com, and he hosts the podcast "March Madness 365." Katz worked at ESPN for nearly two decades and, prior to that, in newspapers for nine years.