Two power 5 schools clash tonight for the 2022 NCAA Tournament men’s championship

If you like history, you’ll find some when you look up the men’s college basketball teams of Kansas and North Carolina.

That’s the past, tonight is the present when the two premier programs take the court at Caesars Superdome in New Orleans for the right to later hoist the 2022 NCAA Tournament championship trophy, and before an expected huge turnout .The chili-hot Tar Heels arrived as an 8th seed and have continued to impress under first-year head coach Hubert Davis, who played for Roy Williams at Chapel Hill, and the last No. 1-seeded Jayhawks remaining as long-time head coach Bill Self seeks a second national title.

History? There’s quite a bit, and you can start by watching the retired Wiliams in the stands and applauding UNC’s 81-71 Final Four win over Atlantic Coast Conference arch-rival Duke Saturday in the first time the two have met at this level of the nationals. Now Williams was also head coach at Big 12 Kansas, even won the whole thing, but apparently there’s the feeling he’s back in the Tar Heels’ corner. Still, it’s hard to figure after he served both programs, it’s like which hand has the M & M.

“Oh, I’m looking forward to it,” Williams said at Monday morning press conference, “but mostly because I’m still so familiar with both programs and happy to see both playing on the biggest stage of college hoops.”

For 15 years, Williams coached Kansas, and was then at the reigns of North Carolina for 18 more. Then there was Larry Brown, a stellar point guard who played under the late legendary head coach Dean Smith at the Tar Heels, and later also coached Kansas to the championship. This pathway between the schools was paved by Smith, the Hall of Famer whose name is on the arena court at Chapel Hill. Plus, Smith was a Jayhawks’ alum who began his coaching career there as an assistant.

Though separated by 1,000 miles, these schools have been attached at the hip for decades. Larry Brown, the Hall of Fame point guard who coached here, there and everywhere, got into coaching and went from the then-New Jersey Nets of the National Basketball Association, to college ball as coach at Kansas. After winning the national title there, he again returned to the NBA, and then back to college back as he aged but still loved the game and wound up taking over the program at SMU before he hung it up.

Does Brown have a favorite here? Who knows, but he will probably be in attendance there tonight or watching it on the tubes.

Said Self in praising UNC, “Coach Davis has done wonders here. All teams go through blips, and obviously, they’ve had a great year after actually being a bubble team about six weeks ago. I recall them tumbling from the top 25 after a handful of losses, now I see them as way more than a No. 8 seed and after another national championship, and we’ve got to cool them off.”

The Jayhawks this season were never on the bubble. In almost every way, this is a title run that’s been building since 2020. That was two seasons ago when Kansas was cruising toward a fourth NCAA championship as a top-25 team in the Associated Press for all but one week. It was sporting a 28-3 record and on pace to step into the Big Dance and even receive the top overall seed.

But COVID-19 scrubbed March Madness. Instead of entering the tournament as the favorite, the Jayhawks spent the quarantined summer of that year thinking of what might have been.

Now they take the court where a number of NCAA Tournament finals have been played. They have experience, with the top eight scorers appearing in a mindboggling 973 college games that included the 81-65 elimination of 2nd-seeded Villanova in Saturday’s semifinals.  They also bring size, quickness, tight defense and teamwork.

Yet, UNC is no doubt playing its best ball of this rollercoaster ride to the finals despite being a four-point underdog, the fourth time in the tourney for them, but It has won 10 of its last 11 games are overly confident in the underdog role. Now, can it bounce back from such a huge victory in such a monumental game. Like Kansas, it has balance led by senior forward David McCormack, who averages 12 points per game and eight rebounds. It also banks on senior forward Mitch Lightfoot, a highly versatile player in his sixth year at the school.

For the Jayhawks, there’s talented senior Leaky Black, junior Arnardo Bacot, and sophomores Brady Manek, a transfer from Oklahoma, and R.J. Davis, all who combine in tossing in points, taking down rebounds, playing aggressive defense, and getting the job done for Self.

“I think one of the keys to college basketball is going to be how to get old,” Self said, “and we’ve been fortunate that we’ve been able to do that the last couple of years.”

Davis is a rookie coach who has been highly instrumental in piecing together this group and climbing up the ranks to settle in on  this great big stage.

“It was just great winning over Duke,” he said, “but we want to bring a championship home and hang up a banner. Beating Duke doesn’t give us a banner.”

Yes, the two schools share the history as they play to again hoist the trophy and show off the championship banner.