King Kaufman's Sports Daily

NCAA Championship Game: Kansas and Memphis are both playing so well, how can either one lose?

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April 7, 2008 | We must resist the temptation, we prophets, prognosticators and purveyors of Shinola, to believe that the way things are going is the way they are going to keep going.

It's a common trap. How many of us who watched Kansas struggle against Davidson last week pegged the Jayhawks to dominate and embarrass North Carolina in the first half of their NCAA Tournament semifinal game Saturday night? Not many of us, especially since North Carolina had looked so good in pounding Washington State and beating an elite Louisville team in the regionals.

I didn't. "I'm not going to win any pools so I don't have to stick with Kansas to beat North Carolina," I wrote Friday. "I think the Tar Heels are too fast and too good."

And yet, look how quickly minds can change. This is famous already, but after Brandon Rush made a 3-pointer to give Kansas an astonishing 38-12 lead with 7:32 left in the first half, CBS analyst Billy Packer put on a kind of funny accent and said, "This game is ovah."

"Is it?" play-by-play man Jim Nantz asked.

"Yes it is," Packer answered confidently.

"Wow!"

Yeah, wow. If Kansas can outscore North Carolina by 26 in seven and a half minutes, who's to say North Carolina -- which had looked like the better team seven and a half minutes earlier -- couldn't outscore Kansas by 26 in 32 and a half minutes?

But did you think the Tar Heels were going to do that? They were stepping in post holes as Kansas ran them out of the gym. The lead was soon 40-12.

I thought the 7:32 mark of the first half was way too early to declare the game over, but mostly as a matter of protocol.

I know that anything can happen. I remember the Bills-Oilers playoff game in '93, the 2004 American League Championship Series and an epic game of Risk during finals week my freshman year. But I'd be lying if I said I thought it would happen. I mean, look at what was going on. Kansas was blowing Carolina's doors off.

We know now that anything didn't happen -- but it almost did. Kansas won the game 84-66, but only after the Tar Heels closed the gap to 54-50 before the midpoint of the second half. At that point, I was thinking North Carolina was going to pull off the comeback, and I'm sure I wasn't the only one thinking that.

Even though I knew, somewhere down there, that the way things are going is not necessarily the way they are going to keep going.

Next page: Two similar teams. It'll come down to who gets hot