Early Surge Cushions Jayhawks' Path to Final

Kansas 84, N. Carolina 66

SAN ANTONIO, April 5 -- There were plenty of moments in Kansas's national basketball semifinal against North Carolina on Saturday night when the Jayhawks might have panicked and lost their composure. Early in the second half, for instance, the Tar Heels seemed to score at will and steadily cut into what had been a huge double-digit lead. With 11 minutes left to play, Kansas's 28-point advantage was whittled to four, and the noise in the Alamodome grew.

"We was definitely still confident," Kansas junior guard Brandon Rush said. "I knew somebody was going to step up and make a play."

But the Jayhawks -- none of whom had ever played on this stage before -- calmly responded with two of their trademarks, balance and defense, and ran away with an 84-66 victory.

Rush scored 25 points to lead Kansas (36-3), which will face Memphis (38-1), a 78-63 winner over UCLA, in the national championship game Monday night. The Jayhawks are making their first title game appearance since 2003 and will try to win their first title since 1988.

North Carolina finished with a 36-3 record; the Tar Heels were 4-0 in NCAA tournament games played in their home state this year, and 0-1 outside of it.

Much of the lead-in to the game centered on North Carolina's Roy Williams, who was facing the school where he had coached for 15 seasons, taking it to four Final Fours. Kansas and North Carolina -- two of college basketball's most pedigreed programs -- had not faced each other since November 2002, Williams's final season with the Jayhawks.

Kansas fans wearing royal blue could be seen throughout San Antonio on Saturday afternoon, and mixed in with the T-shirts that celebrated the Jayhawks' first trip to the Final Four since 2003 were ones that illustrated the lingering resentment over Williams's departure. During pregame introductions, Williams's name seemed to draw an equal number of cheers and boos from the crowd of 43,718.

"I hope it has set aside. I hope it goes away forever," Williams said of the hard feelings that were revisited this week. "I'm too thin-skinned probably. Those things have hurt. But I don't want to focus on that. Let's focus on a great, great performance by Kansas."

Indeed, the Jayhawks were terrific, shooting 53.1 percent for the game. They were facing a team seeded higher than eighth for the first time in the tournament, and they seemed liberated by being in the underdog's role. Rush admitted Kansas was "a little uptight" in last week's Midwest Region final against tournament darling Davidson, and that it felt like the pressure was off against North Carolina, the tournament's overall top seed.

Kansas built a 40-12 lead over the first 13 and a half minutes of the game. Williams was surprised his team wasn't attacking in the way that he wanted them to, while Kansas Coach Bill Self was thrilled at the way his players took the aggressor's role.

The Jayhawks made 16 of their first 23 shots (including 4 of 5 from beyond the arc) and held a 17-5 rebounding edge. Seven players scored in myriad ways: Layups in transition, open three-pointers, drives through the defense. Defensively, Kansas forced turnovers and seemed to grab every loose ball. During one nine-minute stretch, North Carolina missed 13 straight shots and was outscored by a 25-4 margin.

Kansas surrounded junior forward Tyler Hansbrough (17 points) whenever he got the ball, and it hardly mattered that the two players they felt could best match up against the national player of the year -- seniors Darnell Jackson (6-foot-8, 250 pounds) and Sasha Kaun (6-11, 250) -- played a combined nine minutes in the first half after picking up two quick fouls apiece.