Has it really been a week? How many of you woke up last Tuesday morning with a start, wondering if it had all been a dream?
How many of you rushed to your front porch to pick up the Journal-World, or immediately turned on the TV in frantic search of confirmation?
It wasn’t a dream, of course. Kansas University’s men’s basketball team really did capture the NCAA championship with a thrilling 75-68 overtime victory over Memphis.
Now that the euphoria from KU’s third NCAA championship is beginning to wane, it’s time to take an analytical look at this edition of the Jayhawks.
First of all, this team was different from the school’s other two national champions. Both of those clubs had a dominant player – Clyde Lovellette in 1952 and Danny Manning in 1988.
Lovellette remains the last player to lead a team to the NCAA title while also leading the nation in scoring. Manning was tapped player of the year in ’88 and was the first selection in the NBA Draft a couple of months later.
In comparison, the most dominant player on the ’08 champs was, well, take your pick.
No doubt the most memorable player will be Mario Chalmers, thanks to his stunning and stupendous game-tying three-point goal in the waning seconds. But the junior guard averaged just 12.8 points a game during the season.
Brandon Rush? Well, the junior forward did drop a 25-point bomb on North Carolina in the Final Four semis, and he did lead the team in scoring, although at a pedestrian 13.3 points a game.
Trivia question: Who was the Jayhawks’ leading scorer in the win over Memphis? It wasn’t Rush. He counted just a dozen points against the Tigers. It wasn’t Chalmers, either. He had 18. The leading scorer was soph Darrell Arthur with 20.
In the Jayhawks’ six NCAA tourney victories, Rush was the leading scorer in three games, Chalmers in two and Arthur in that one. But sixth man Sasha Kaun shared scoring honors with Chalmers in the excruciating nail-biter against Davidson.
Rush and Chalmers were the only KU players who scored in double figures in all six NCAA games. Thanks largely to that 25-point explosion against UNC, Rush averaged 15.8 points in those half-dozen contests.
Chalmers was close behind Rush at 14.8. Then came Arthur at 11.0, Darnell Jackson at 8.5, Sherron Collins at 8.3, Russell Robinson at 7.0 and Kaun at 6.2.
As you know, the 2008 Final Four was the first composed entirely of No. 1 seeds. Three of the teams also boasted a first-team All-American – North Carolina’s Tyler Hansbrough, UCLA’s Kevin Love and Memphis’ Chris Douglas-Roberts.
Kansas had no first-team All-Americans. Kansas had no second-team All-Americans. Kansas had no third-team All-Americans. Rush, Chalmers and Arthur did earn honorable mention, however.
That a school would capture an NCAA title – not to mention win 37 of 40 games – without a single first-, second- or third-team All-American is mind-boggling in an era that places so much emphasis on the culture of the superstar.
It’s almost as if Kansas won the national title with reverse logic. Then again, the 2008 NCAA champs may turn out to be trend-setters.
