Kentucky Wildcats Wins NCAA National Championship

He finally did it.
John Calipari has finally added a championship to his resume.
Despite a rough shooting night by the best of Kentucky's talented freshmen, Anthony Davis, the Wildcats defeated Kansas 67-59 on Monday night to win their eighth national title, and first since 1998.
Davis, who might have had the most dominating six-point night in the history of college basketball, earning the nod as the most outstanding  player. Midway through the first half, he was scoreless but still on pace for a triple-double. He finished with 16 rebounds, six blocks, five assists and three steals — and made his only field goal with 5:13 left in the game.
Kansas and Kentucky Advance to Title Game 
It was a surefire illustration of how the 6-foot-10 freshman can exert his will on a game even on a rare night when the shot isn't falling.
"I love the fact Anthony Davis goes 1 for 10, and you all say he was biggest factor of game," Calipari said. "He was 1 for 10. I asked these guys what they would do without scoring. You have an idea what he does."
Over the next few weeks, Davis will decide whether to return to college — unlikely — or head to the NBA, where he'll probably be the top pick. Kidd-Gilchrist could go second.
Kansas (32-7) also has a lottery pick in AP All-American Thomas Robinson. He was harassed all night by Davis and Terrence Jones and finished with 18 points and 17 rebounds on a 6-for-17 shooting night. He was huge in the second half, while the Jayhawks were making one of those desperate comebacks that have become their trademark this year. This time, KU trimmed Kentucky's lead to five with 1:37 left. But the Wildcats made five free throws down the stretch to seal the win.
"It (stinks) that we have to be down 14 before we want to start fighting," KU guard Tyshawn Taylor said. "Guess that's kind of what happened."
So, the Jayhawks settled for the "B'' League title this year, as Calipari avenged a final-game loss to Bill Self back in 2008 when Calipari was coaching Memphis. The Tigers missed four late free throws in blowing a nine-point lead in that one. Kansas didn't get any such help this time.

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Calipari last season not only coached the Wildcats but also coached the Dominican Republic, trying to revitalize their basketball program.
It’s not known whether the Dominican Republic  team will have Calipari and his coaching staff back this upcoming season.
With Calipari at the helm, the team has a good chance of success. Calipari helped the D.R. win the bronze medal last summer in the FIBA Americas Championship.
Even with the loss, it wasn't a bad season in Lawrence,KS considering where KU began.
Kansas lost four of its top five scorers off last year's roster. There were times early in the season when Self and his old buddy and mentor, Larry Brown, would stand around at practices and wonder if this was a team that could even make the tournament. It did. Won its eighth straight conference title, too.
"Nobody even expected us to be here in the first place, for us to have a great season," KU guard Travis Releford said. "And we did. We were able to compete for a championship. We had a great year."
Kentucky's was better, and Davis certainly did nothing to hurt his draft stock despite missing more shots in this game than he had in the last three.
He set the tone early on defense, swatting Robinson's shot twice, grabbing rebounds, making pretty bounce passes for assists.
Early in the second half, he made a steal that also could have been an assist, knocking the ball out of Robinson's hands and directly to Jones, who dunked for a 46-30 lead.
Then, finally. With 5:13 left in the game, he spotted up for a 15-foot jumper from the baseline that swished for a 59-44 lead, putting a dagger in one of Kansas' many comebacks.
"He was terrific," Self said. "The basket he made was one of the biggest baskets of the game."
His only bucket of the game — could that be a different sort of spin on "one and done?"
Well, if Davis does choose to leave, Calipari can certainly handle it. He has mastered the art of rebuilding on the fly.
He's the coach who brings in the John Walls, Brandon Knights and Derrick Roses (at Memphis) for cups of coffee, lets them sharpen up their resumes, then happily says goodbye when it becomes obvious there's nothing left for them to do in school.
The coach refuses to apologize for the way he recruits or how he runs his program. Just playing by the rules as they're set up, he says, even if he doesn't totally agree with them. Because he refuses to promise minutes or shots to any recruit and demands teamwork out of all of them, he says he comes by these players honestly.
He has produced nine first-round picks in the last four drafts, including five in 2010. That draft day was as big a moment for the school as any, Calipari said. A pretty big statement for the program built by Adolph Rupp.
"The reason was, I knew now that other kids would look and say, 'You've got to go there,'" Calipari said.
This latest group came and won it all.
"I wanted that," Calipari said. "I told them I wanted this to be one for the ages."

Recap: Kansas vs. Ohio State

A phantom traveling call, a putback dunk, an inbounds steal, a foul-shot lane violation on an intentional miss -- the Kansas-Ohio State game had a little bit of everything.
And that was just the last 27.4 seconds.
"It certainly wasn't a pretty game," said Kansas head coach Bill Self, "not artistic at all."
But he'll take the outcome.
Thomas Robinson scored 19 points on Saturday and Kansas survived a breathless final moments to beat Ohio State, 64-62, in the Final Four and reach the NCAA title game for the second time in five years.
The Jayhawks rallied from 13 points down in the first half, took their first lead since 2-0 with under three minutes left and moved on to play Kentucky for the national championship on Monday.
Among the game's bizarre turns, Ohio State guard Aaron Craft was whistled for a lane violation when he broke from the line too early while trying to brick his second attempt off the rim with 2.9 seconds left.
The Buckeyes, caught off-guard, didn't react to Kansas inbounding the ball and were left looking around as the Jayhawks dribbled off the remaining seconds.
"They never gave up," said Jared Sullinger, the Ohio State star. "I mean, it was a great game."
Travis Releford added 15 points, including four gutsy free throws that helped Kansas (32-6) take the lead for good, while Elijah Johnson had 13 points and 10 rebounds and Tyshawn Taylor scored 10.
William Buford scored 19 to lead Ohio State (31-8) and Sullinger had 13 with 11 rebounds.
The Buckeyes -- like Kansas, a No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament -- controlled the first half, took a 34-25 lead into the break, then went cold in the second half the same way North Carolina did last weekend against the Jayhawks.
Still, they clung to the lead until Releford's free throws with 2:48 remaining capped a 7-0 run and gave Kansas a slim 56-55 lead.
Then, the fireworks.
Ohio State scored four in a row, including Craft's layup after a steal for a three-point lead, but Taylor followed with a double-clutch bank shot and the final go-ahead points of the game came on Releford's free throws with 1:37 left.
Jeff Withey had seven blocks, including one that led to Johnson's layup for a 62-59 Kansas lead. Robinson stole the ball at the other end, but Withey was called for traveling to erase a Kansas bucket -- replays didn't show a clear walk.
Deshaun Thomas missed a three for Ohio State, but Withey kicked the rebound away near the baseline. Thomas missed again, but Buford crashed the net for a putback dunk that got the Buckeyes within 62-61 with 9.6 seconds left.
Taylor's free throws pushed the Kansas lead to three -- then, with a heads-up play that birthed a bone-headed move, he stole the inbounds pass and attempted a bounce pass to a streaking teammate.
The ball went out of bounds on the far side, and Kansas sent Craft to the line with 2.9 ticks left. After Craft made his first try, he leaned in to clank the second off the front of the rim, leaving the line too early.
Afterward, Ohio State coach Thad Matta admitted that his team wasn't ready to defend the inbounds pass.
Even CBS wasn't ready -- its broadcast was showing a replay while Kansas threw it in and held on to wind the final seconds off.
"Down the stretch, as this tournament goes, it comes down to making some plays," said Matta. "Give them credit -- they did a great job of finishing [while] we had the ball, had some great shots [that didn't] go in for us."
Monday's title game, also to be held at the Superdome, will pit the same two coaches from the 2008 Final against each other. In that one, Self bested John Calipari, then the Memphis coach but now at Kentucky.
"After we got it down to six points, or four, these guys have been in so many close games they just stepped up and made plays," said Self after his team shot 53.8 percent in the second half to beat Ohio State.
The Jayhawks also beat Ohio State on Dec. 10 in Lawrence, though the Buckeyes were missing Sullinger in that one. Kansas, appearing in its 14th Final Four, will play for its fourth national title on Monday.
Ohio State had leads of 7-2 and 26-13 in the first half, the latter on Thomas' layup with around six minutes remaining.
The Buckeyes shot 46.2 percent in the half and enjoyed a double-digit lead for much if it, but Kansas drew within 34-25 on Releford's buzzer-beating layup, which followed a Withey block at the other end.
The Jayhawks, no stranger to a down first half in this tournament, had nine turnovers and shot 36.7 percent in the half. Taylor attempted their first free throws of the game with 23 seconds left, making both of them.
Kansas started its comeback with a 12-2 run that spanned the first and second half.
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NCAA basketball Final Four: Kansas comes back, beats Ohio State

NEW ORLEANS — Trailing by nine points at halftime, Kansas had Ohio State right where it wanted in Saturday’s national semifinal.
The Jayhawks’ NCAA tournament run has been defined by strong second-half performances, and they offered another with the help of indomitable forward Thomas Robinson. As he has all season, Robinson played at a higher level than everybody else on the floor at the Superdome, leading the Jayhawks to a 64-62 victory over Ohio State before 73,361
The nine-point halftime deficit was second-largest halftime deficit overcome in a national semifinal.
“You couldn’t have scripted it any better,” said Robinson, a Washington native who finished with 19 points and eight rebounds. “When we’re down, we stick together.”
Said Jayhawks Coach Bill Self, “These guys have been in so many close games, they have so much confidence.”
Kansas (32-6) earned a trip to its first national title game since 2008, when it beat a John Calipari-coached Memphis team to give Self his first national championship.
This season, Self’s ninth in Lawrence, may be his finest coaching job. After losing to mid-major programs Virginia Commonwealth and Northern Iowa in the NCAA tournament the past two seasons, Self took a team with middling preseason expectations to its eighth consecutive Big 12 regular season title.
He watched Robinson rebound from personal tragedy to turn himself into a national player of the year candidate. He saw erratic senior Tyshawn Taylor overcome an up-and-down career arc to deliver a sterling performance in a Midwest Region final victory over North Carolina. And he witnessed center Jeff Withey blossom into the Big 12 defensive player of the year (he had seven blocks on Saturday night to give him 27 in five NCAA tournament games).
And Saturday night provided another sterling effort and turnaround. Kansas had excelled in the second half in the NCAA tournament, particularly in the second round against Purdue and in the Elite Eight against North Carolina. The Jayhawks were poised for another second-half surge Saturday, when the Buckeyes missed their first 10 shots from the field in the half.
Robinson’s emphatic dunk cut the deficit to three points. Elijah Johnson’s layup in transition tied the score at 38, capping a 17-4 run. It took nearly seven minutes into the second half before Ohio State (31-8) had its first field goal, a corner three-pointer by Aaron Craft.
Meantime, Deshaun Thomas, who had been one of Ohio State’s best offensive players throughout the tournament, picked up his fourth foul with 11 minutes 30 seconds remaining.
Ohio State’s William Buford and Kansas senior Conner Teahan traded three-point baskets down the stretch. With Kansas trailing by one point with three minutes to play, Robinson demanded the ball in the post, but he could not convert against Jared Sullinger.
Moments later, two free throws by Travis Releford gave the Jayhawks their first lead since the opening minute of the game, 56-55. But back came the Buckeyes and Craft, the school’s all-time single-season steals leader, who stole the ball and raced the other way for a layup .

Final Four 2012 | Louisville basketball tired of hearing that no one is giving them a chance

NEW ORLEANS — University of Louisville players acknowledge Kentucky’s résumé makes it the favorite in today’s Final Four matchup, but the Cardinals don’t feel like underdogs.

That would imply that they don’t belong with Kansas, Ohio State and the Wildcats as the last four teams playing in the NCAA Tournament. After winning the Big East Tournament and the West Regional, they believe they belong with the best.

“We’ve cut down the nets twice, and I don’t want my guys to feel inferior,” coach Rick Pitino said. “It’s easy to feel inferior to Kentucky because they go on the draft board all the time. … You don’t want that feeling going into it because you’ll play like inferior players. We don’t want that underdog mentality.”

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If not underdogs, they’re at least underappreciated.

“People aren’t giving us a chance at all,” said senior Kyle Kuric, U of L’s leading scorer. “We won games just like everybody else, so we’re not content.”

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Pitino said earlier in the week that the Cards would have to play a Villanova-type game, a reference to that team’s 66-64 upset of Georgetown in the 1985 national championship game. As a No. 8 seed, Nova played a near-perfect game and shot 78.6 percent from the field.

But the key to that victory was the fact that those Wildcats talked openly about not being intimidated by the heavily favored Hoyas despite losing to them twice in the regular season.

U of L senior Chris Smith was born 2½ years after that game. Kuric said he thinks he’s seen some video clips from it. But both embody the spirit of Villanova’s fight.

“Everybody will call us underdogs,” Smith said. “We don’t think were underdogs; we’re expecting to win this game. We’re not going to let our confidence down and let our fans down, you know, even ourselves. We’re just going to go out there, play hard, play our style of basketball.”