On the 20-year anniversary of ‘Danny Manning & The Miracles,’ marking Kansas’ last National Championship, the Jayhawks rallied from nine points down with 2:12 to play to defeat the Memphis Tigers 75-68 in an overtime thriller.  Named Most Outstanding Player of the Final Four, guard Mario Chalmers, who finished with 18 points, launched an unbelievable three-pointer with two defenders contesting to tie the game and send it to overtime.  Kansas, which shot a solid 52.7% from the field, went on a 24-8 spurt to end this classic title game.

Trailing by five at the half, Memphis finished the first half without scoring the final 4:50 and notching just two points over the last 6:23.  Their finish to the second half turned out to be even more troublesome after freshman phenom Derrick Rose, who’ll likely be the top pick in next June’s NBA Draft provided he leaves college after one year, literally willed his team in front.  In an eight-minute span in the second half, Rose scored 14 points, including an incredible bank shot with Darnell Jackson’s hand in his face that was initially ruled a three-pointer with 4:14 to go.  During a TV time-out, officials got together to review the play to see whether or not Rose was inside the arc and it remained a three-pointer until they reviewed it again and changed it a two-point basket, slicing Memphis’ lead to 56-49.

Considering the game went to overtime, that one point that was taken away really loomed largely.  Let’s point out that Rose was indeed inside the three-point arc, so the correct call was made.  However, the referees shouldn’t wait that long to change the call.  Heck, we might as well go back to the 1998 NBA Finals and play a Gm. 7 since there were two obviously incorrect calls made involving a Howard Eisley three-pointer and a Ron Harper shot (that’s a story for another time… but I digress).  From that point on, Kansas began to chip into Memphis’ lead. 

Once Joey Dorsey picked up his fifth foul at the 1:23 mark, the Tigers really started to struggle on the inside.  Darrell Arthur was superb on the inside, registering a double-double with 20 points and 10 rebounds.  The play that really made Kansas believe they could win came a little before Dorsey fouled out with 1:46 remaining.  Following a bucket by Arthur to trim the deficit to seven, Sherron Collins made a steal and hit an immense three-pointer to make it a two possession game.  Throw in some missed free-throws by Memphis, the Tigers going 1-for-10 from the field over the final seven minutes and Chalmers’ heroics set the stage for the conclusion of a remarkable comeback in OT.  Up three and with Kansas inbounding the ball with 10.8 seconds left in regulation, Memphis could’ve chosen to foul the Jayhawks, put them on the line and not give them enough time for a potential game-tying or winning three-point attempt.  Instead, they let the Jayhawks drive the length of the court and made them shoot an off-balanced trey.  When it went in, the Tigers had 2.1 seconds to work with, yet Head Coach John Calipari didn’t burn one of his two time-outs there either.

Kansas, a team that had seven different leading scorers and rebounders this season to make them about as well-balanced as any team around, was 14-for-15 from the free-throw line.  Not to mention, they out-rebounded the Tigers 39-28, preventing Memphis from being the more physical of the two teams.  In the overtime, the Jayhawks went inside and had no problem scoring.  Memphis, on the other hand, saw Rose play passive rather than aggressive, All-American Chris Douglas-Roberts force up some bad shots and lacking Dorsey meant few second chance opportunities.

What certainly can’t be ignored is free-throw shooting.  In 2003, Kansas went 12-of-30 from the foul line as sensational freshman Carmelo Anthony scored 20 points on April 7^th to bring Syracuse its first ever National Championship.  Fast forward the script exactly five years later on the very same date, facing another fabulous freshman in Rose that seemed to be taking over the game and in many ways Kansas’ saving grace was the charity stripe.  While the Jayhawks were a superb 14-of-15 at the line (93.3%), the Tigers went 12-of-19, but more importantly missed four of their final five attempts there the last 1:12 of regulation.  Even harder for Memphis fans to swallow was the fact that their two best players, Rose and CDR, each had a chance to put the game away and didn’t.

Memphis failed to get the easy baskets on dunks and lay-ups that they’ve been accustomed to getting in previous games; they finished with a meager four fast-break points all night.  Even one of the plays where it looked like they would get transition points when Willie Kemp made a steal and threw a bad lob to Robert Dozier at the 6:02 mark that would’ve put Memphis up four stung quite a bit.

For the Memphis Tigers, it was a great season, posting a record of 38-2, but the gut-wrenching loss on Monday night will really linger with them for quite a while.  In Lawrence though, it’ll be a night to remember for the rest of time for all KU fans.  And for Chalmers, known to be an aggressive, pesky defender that uses his hands extremely well to disrupt opponents, his shot will go down as one of the most dramatic in Final Four history.