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Rock Chalk Talk: Basketball
Anything pertaining to basketball: college, pro, HS, recruiting, TV coverage
Anything pertaining to basketball: college, pro, HS, recruiting, TV coverage
NCAA Virtual Tourney NC Game -- Somebody had to lose.
4 years 2 weeks ago #25420
by CorpusJayhawk
Don't worry about the mules, just load the wagon!!
National Championship
Between the Dayton Flyers (Officer Obi and the Group W bench) and the Kansas Jayahwks (
For those of you have have lots of time on your hands which is probably a lot of you, you may have read the completely meaningless ESPN story on the Way-Too-Early-Bracketology. Joe Lunardi has KU as a 2 seed. Given our roster situation at present I would be very happy with that. We have Marcus returning and likely Agbaji, although for reasons that escape me personally, Agbaji has appeared on a number of NBA Mock Drafts, even a 1st rounder in one. I do not see that at all. So who knows if he will be back. I suspect he will. We have a legit 5* recruit from Tulsa in Bryce Thompson and supposedly a very good JC transfer in Tyon Grant-Foster. All 4 of those will likely start with Self’s almost complete metamorphosis to a 4-guard set. That leaves McCormack as the 5th starter. But that would leave us without a true point guard. So perhaps DeJuan Harris starts but who does he displace? In any case, I think we make up for the loss of Moss. But there is no making up for the loss of Udoka. I’m hoping Dave has a breakthrough this summer. And Mitch will be back and should be a contributor. I can’t see us as good as we were this year but Self is a genius so I will withhold judgment until the time comes.
Now back to the game at hand.
Coming into the National Championship game, both teams were brimming with confidence. Dayton was 37-2 while Kansas was 36-3. One of Dayton’s 2 losses was to this Kansas team in the Maui Championship game in overtime. Dayton boasted the national coach of the year and national player of the year and three 1st team all Atlantic 10 players. Kansas boasted 2 All-Americans, the best defensive player of the year and a 24 game winning streak. Kansas had a more difficult road to the Final Four playing an 8 seed Providence, a 12th seeded Vermont, a 3 seed Creighton and a fellow 1 seed Michigan St. Dayton had a 9 seeded Illinois, a 12 seed in ETSU, 2nd seeded Duke and 8 seeded Richmond. The powers that be could not be happier with the finals matchup. It is always nice to have the best player in the country in the finals. But here we have also 2 additional All-Americans. We have the best defensive player, the national coach of the year, two conference champions and the overall best team in the country. This is set to be an epic battle.
Kansas won the tip and as always, Bill Self had a play call for Udoka to get the ball down low. It was obvious that Mikesell was well coached and was defending properly, backing Udoka and not letting him establish position too close to the basket. A nice lob pass from Garrett into Udoka . Only Braun, starting for Moss, was on the strong side but deep in the corner. If Braun’s man attempted a double-team that would leave Braun open in the corner. But Udoka, the Nigerian Flash, did not allow anyone any time to dig down in a double team. He shoulder faked off of the dribble and turned to his right, one step and slam. Udoka had shown this move a bit over the last 10 games of the season. Clearly he was still learning. His already deadly close is was expanding. Coach Grant saw exactly what happened and knew he needed to make an adjustment. He felt Mikesell could adequately guard Udoka by baking him and not allowing him to establish position. But Udoka showed that was not the case. From that very first basket, Grant new his team was in for a real challenge. Grant had not forgotten the 78 points that Udoka, Dotson and Garrett hung on Dayton in their first match. The rest of the team scored only 12 points. But in that game, Mikesell had fronted Udoka most of the game forcing a lob. And lobs came in bunches with Udoka scoring 29 points on 12-15 from the field. Grant thought by backing Udoka, they could prevent the lobs thinking Udoka not likely to dribble. In the 5 possessions where Udoka was forced to dribble in the 1st game, 3 ended in missed FG’s by Udoka and 2 ended in steals by Dayton. Clearly, this was not the same Udoka of the first game and that was a terrifying thought.
But Dayton was not without their weapons as well. Obi Toppin was the player of the year in college and many considered to be the best overall offensive player in the country. Mikesell was a crafty and deceptively mobile big guy with a soft touch who led Dayton in scoring in the first game against Kansas. Crutcher, despite being the focus of KU’s defense in the first game scored 12 points on 4-9 from deep. He was clearly capable. And Ibi Watson scored 16 against Kansas previously and was an excellent shooter.
Garrett was on Toppin. Grant had a play called for Mikesell, wanting to force Udoka to guard, hopefully contributing to wearing him down. Plus, they wanted to discourage Kansas active switching by establishing Mikesell from the get-go. Mikesell got the ball in position and in a quick move, turned to lay up a lefty hook shot. But Udoka was just long enough to get a finger on the ball which deflected off the rim and into the always ready hands of Christian Braun. The game was not yet a minute old, yet Kansas had established that it was as hungry as Dayton, as prepared as Dayton and realistically, more talented than Dayton. Grant was not please with how the opening possessions had gone.
When you have the No. 1 player in America, you will not get shut out for very long. Knowing this was his last game as a collegiate, Toppin was committed to going out with a bang. And if Coach Grant made a blunder in his planning for this game it was buying into this commitment of Toppin along with the thought that Toppin would be the key to Dayton’s victory. Toppin was the leading scorer for the Flyers averaging 20.0 PPG. The Flyers averaged 80.0 PPG so Toppin was generally about 25% of their offense. In this game Toppin was getting touches every possession and it looked as though he was leaning toward 30-40% of the offense. This threw the balance of their offense off. Combine that with the fact that Toppin was being guarded by the best defender in America and the result was a somewhat diminished offensive efficiency from their norm.
Meanwhile, Dayton’s 18th rated defense was being shredded by Udoka Azubuike. By halftime, KU held a 38-30 lead and Udoka had 14 points and 10 rebounds. Azubuike had an All-American level senior season. But if you looked only at the las20 or so games of the season, it would be hard not to put Udoka at the top of the heap for All-American. He had simply dominated in the NCAA. His power had always been evident, but surprisingly, he was shooting 18-30 from the FT line in the NCAA and his defense was otherworldly, averaging almost 7 blocks per game. He had 3 blocks in the 1sdt half against Dayton.
Dotson was right on his average with 9 points at halftime, coming from 3 drives to the rim and 3 trips to the FT line. He had missed his only 3-point attempt and had not yet recorded an assist. But KU was getting plenty of assists and many of them coming from an unusual source. Marcus Garrett had 6 assists at halftime but Christian Braun also had 6 assists at halftime to go along with 9 points, all from the 3-point line on 3-4 shooting. Ochai Agbaji did not score in the 1st half on 4 shot attempts, but Coach Self would credit him after the game with playing perhaps the best defense he had played all season. Agbaji had primarily guarded Trey Landers. Landers averaged 10.1 PPG in the regular season but had come alive with a 16.5PPG average in the NCAA. Agbaji had shut him down to a single basket on 6 attempts. All 5 KU starters played at least 16 minutes with Dotson and Agbaji, playing all 20 minutes.
Dayton played reasonably well but they simply looked like a team whose 6th ranked offense was being overshadowed by KU’s top ranked defense. KU’s offense averaged 1.087 PPP on the season and in the 1st half they scored 38 points on 34 possessions for 1.118 PPP. Garrett, perhaps channeling his mojo from the Oklahoma game in Allen Fieldhouse when he went 6-9 from the 3-point line, attempted three 3 pointers in the first half missing all three. But he was deadly on his drives to the basket hitting all three for 6 points in the first half.
KU was cruising and gradually pulling away. They increased their lead over the 1st 8 minutes of the 2nd half to 12 points when disaster struck. Garrett, whose passing was one of the highlights and strong points of the game for Kansas, reinjured the foot that had been giving him trouble for most of the 2nd half of the season. On a drive to the rim, Garrett used a sweet crossover dribble to get by Toppin, who was guarding him. The scout on Garrett is to force him left since he almost exclusively drives to the right. Garrett faked right and crossed over and blew by Toppin. The help was not there since Braun rotated from the corner on the weak side up the sideline taking his defender with him. Azubuike set a world class screen on Mikesell giving Garrett a clear path to the rim. Toppin, using his quickness, recovered but just a fraction of a second late. As he stepped right to attempt to cut off Garret, he ended up stepping on Garrett’s sore foot putting Garrett immediately to the floor. Garrett is known as one of the toughest players in college. He played both his sophomore and junior seasons with nagging injuries. This would prove to be his last minutes for his junior season. After the fact, it was revealed that Garrett suffered a simple fracture. Doctors said it should heal completely but he would be out of action for 2 months. At that stage of the game, Garrett had 8 points and 10 assists. His brilliant passing was a big reason KU had built the 58-46 lead at the 12:03 mark in the game. With Moss and Garrett both injured and unable to play, Self was forced to go with his only remaining backcourt player, in Tristan Enaruna. The freshman had an up and down season. But the biggest concern was guarding Obi Toppin. Garrett had certainly not stopped Toppin but he had slowed him down, especially considering the heavy focus on getting Toppin the ball on almost every possession.
As it turned out, the loss of Garrett did not change the fortunes of Obi Toppin but it did change the fortunes of Trey Landers Self switched freshman Christian Braun to guard Toppin, and Braun showed while he was a burgeoning star. Giving up almost 4 inches and 40 pounds, Braun was able to continue just about where Garrett left off. But Landers, now guarded by Enaruna instead of Braun as he had been most of the game, was able to break out. Landers scored the next 13 points for the Flyers on 5 possessions as Dayton went on a 13-5 run to cut the lead to 4 at 63-59 at the under 8 minute timeout. Self switched Agbaji to guard the hot handed Landers with Enaruna on Ibi Watson. Meanwhile, largely unnoticed in this chess game of offense, defense, Devon Dotson had virtually shut down Dayton’s 2nd leading scorer and PG Aaron Crutcher. Crutcher has scored only 4 points and was unable to get a clean look with Dotson draped on him. Dotson, known as a solid face guarding defender was having perhaps the best defensive game of his 2 year career at Kansas.
Over the course of the next 3 minutes, Ibi Watson and Obi Toppin each scored 4 points as Dayton tied the score at 67 each with 4:54 to go. Then the play that would turn this game on it’s head. Dayton had the ball and was working through their half-court set. Coach Grant designed a play to get Crutcher a shot at the top of the key. Crutcher, came in to set a pick on Enaruna at the elbow looking like he was trying to free up Landers for a pick and pop. But in reality, Lander hoping to get Enaruna to play underneath him, actually set a pick on Dotson as Crutcher came around Enaruna and went straight back to the 3-point line at the top of the key where Ibi Watson delivered a pass right on the money. Crutcher received the pass rose, shot and swish. Dotson, was able to go around the screen and reached Crutcher just as he shot. Now this was a bang bang play and two things were happening at once that went against the Jayhawks. The first was a vociferous Bill Self was on the floor screaming at the official that the screen set by Landers was a clear and obvious moving screen and should have been called a foul. Both TV announcers agreed and replay showed that it almost certainly should have been called a moving screen. The official did not have the proper angle and thought that Enaruna had made the first contact and had pushed Landers into Dotson. Replay showed that Landers was the one who did the pushing. Self, perhaps a little frustrated with the misfortunes of losing two starters and seeing a lead evaporate, made his argument a little too forcefully and was assessed a technical foul. Meanwhile, Dotson, who recovered a fraction late was assessed a foul when he ostensibly touched Crutcher on the wrist. Replay was inconclusive but it did not appear that Dotson touched Crutcher. Crutcher ended up on the floor calling into question a flopping call. In any case, Dayton scored the three point basket and had 3 FT’s, one off the common foul and 2 for the technical. Crutcher made all three FT’s giving the Flyers a 73-67 lead with 4:30 left to play.
Things settled down for the Jayhawks as they buckled down on defense. Self had replaced Enaruna with McCormack. To the surprise of Many, Self moved Azubuike over to guard Toppin and put McCormack on Mikesell. Over the next 3 minutes, Azubuike showed why he might well have been overlooked as the top player in the country. Despite an intense focus to capitalize on this matchup and get Toppin the Ball. Toppin did not score another basket with Azubuike guarding him. On the offensive end, it became the Dotson and Azubuike show. From 4:30 down to 28 seconds, KU cut the lead to 78-77 and KU had the ball for the last shot. Self discussed after the game that he did not see removing Azubuike as an option even though he knew Dayton would likely try to foul Udoka if they had an opportunity. Despite Self’s praise of Azubuike’s free throw shooting prowess, he decided to not go to Azubuike for the final shot fearing Dayton would just foul him. Instead, he went with his next best weapon, a drive to the basket by Dotson.
KU ran the clock and with 7 second to play, Dotson made his move. Coach Grant was not the coach of the year for no reason. He suspected this would be KU’s choice of play and called a defense precisely designed to stop the play by forcing Dotson to either charge into a waiting defender or go wide forcing a more difficult and awkward shot. The defense was well executed and Dotson, alertly seeing that Mikesell was well positioned to take a charge, veered right and put up a shot over a stretching Toppin. It was Toppin’s turn to show why he was the player of the year. In an amazingly athletic play, Toppin managed to deflect Dotson’s shot. With 3 seconds on the clock. A great season by the Jayhawks was looking like it would end in a defeat in the National Championship game.
Toppin was well position to grab the ball as it was deflected up. But Azubuike, in one of the most intelligent and athletic plays of the season, quick stepped around Mikesell and just as Toppin was jumping to block the shot, Azubuike was jumping to grab the deflected ball. The ball came down equally into Azubuike’s and Toppin’s hands. Both players appeared to have a firm grasp on the ball with both hands. But in a display of superior strength, Azubuike ferociously rips the ball away and in one motion turns to shoot in an awkward left-handed hook. Mikesell, saw what was happening and he was stepping toward Azubuike when Azubuike did his ferocious ball ripping. Mikesell was in the wrong place at the right time and managed to make significant contact with Azubuike. The whistle blew as the buzzer sounded. A foul had been called on Mikesell but was had the clock expired. The question was not had the ball left Azubuike’s hands when the clock expired, but was in in a legitimate shooting motion when contact was made before the clock expired.
What ensued was a lengthy discussion between the refs with video review. After the initial discussion and video review, they confabbed for more discussion. Meanwhile , Azubuike, a 40% on the season FT shooter was cooling down on the bench. Conventional wisdom would say this was to the disadvantage of Azubuike and the Jayhawks. After a 5 minute discussion and review, the head ref signaled it was a foul and Mikesell and Azubuike would get two FT’s. To make matter worse, the refs decided the clock simultaneously expired so Udoka would shoot FT’s on an empty lane. That is when Coach Self called his final timeout. When asked what was said in that timeout in the post game interview, Udoka with a tear in his eye related Self’s instruction.
Coach looked straight at me and said. “Udoka, look behind me. Who do you see in the 2nd row behind the bench? That is your mother. She has come all the way from Nigeria to see you. She is proud of you regardless of of whether you make these FT’s or not. She is and will always be your biggest fan. I want you to look up at her right now. I want all of you to look up at her and your own family members right now.” Udoka continued, “So I looked up at my mom and she was smiling at me. Everyone was looking at their family members. I don’t ever recall feeling more part of a team than at that moment. After a moment Self told the other four guys that there is no way in hell they will stand back behind the arc and watch Udoka shoot FT’s alone. They will take their positions in the boxes in the lane even though the clock has expired. I think it really surprised the Dayton players when we all of us went to the FT lane. Then, before the ref threw me the ball, one by one his teammates came to the FT line and gave me a fist bump. I wanted to make the FT’s for my mom. I wanted to make the FT’s for my teammates. I wanted to make the FT’s for all the Jayhawk fans.”
Not to be outdone, Coach Grant calls his last timeout. Asked what Self said in that timeout, Udoka related, “First he just turned to me and said make the FT’s. Then he just told all of us to enjoy this moment and sear it into our memories. He said this will be a cherished memory for the rest of our lives. He wanted us to look at each other and then he turned and sat down on the bench and let us stand there with each other. All the guys told me they trusted me.”
Back on the line Azubuike squares up and that quickly the game is tied. With a national championship on the line, Udoka turns one last time to make eye contact with his mother in the stands. He turns, shoots and KU wins a National Championship.
Udoka is named MOP and Dotson, Garrett and Azubuike are all tournament 1st team along with Toppin and Cassius Stanley of Michigan St.
Between the Dayton Flyers (Officer Obi and the Group W bench) and the Kansas Jayahwks (
For those of you have have lots of time on your hands which is probably a lot of you, you may have read the completely meaningless ESPN story on the Way-Too-Early-Bracketology. Joe Lunardi has KU as a 2 seed. Given our roster situation at present I would be very happy with that. We have Marcus returning and likely Agbaji, although for reasons that escape me personally, Agbaji has appeared on a number of NBA Mock Drafts, even a 1st rounder in one. I do not see that at all. So who knows if he will be back. I suspect he will. We have a legit 5* recruit from Tulsa in Bryce Thompson and supposedly a very good JC transfer in Tyon Grant-Foster. All 4 of those will likely start with Self’s almost complete metamorphosis to a 4-guard set. That leaves McCormack as the 5th starter. But that would leave us without a true point guard. So perhaps DeJuan Harris starts but who does he displace? In any case, I think we make up for the loss of Moss. But there is no making up for the loss of Udoka. I’m hoping Dave has a breakthrough this summer. And Mitch will be back and should be a contributor. I can’t see us as good as we were this year but Self is a genius so I will withhold judgment until the time comes.
Now back to the game at hand.
Coming into the National Championship game, both teams were brimming with confidence. Dayton was 37-2 while Kansas was 36-3. One of Dayton’s 2 losses was to this Kansas team in the Maui Championship game in overtime. Dayton boasted the national coach of the year and national player of the year and three 1st team all Atlantic 10 players. Kansas boasted 2 All-Americans, the best defensive player of the year and a 24 game winning streak. Kansas had a more difficult road to the Final Four playing an 8 seed Providence, a 12th seeded Vermont, a 3 seed Creighton and a fellow 1 seed Michigan St. Dayton had a 9 seeded Illinois, a 12 seed in ETSU, 2nd seeded Duke and 8 seeded Richmond. The powers that be could not be happier with the finals matchup. It is always nice to have the best player in the country in the finals. But here we have also 2 additional All-Americans. We have the best defensive player, the national coach of the year, two conference champions and the overall best team in the country. This is set to be an epic battle.
Kansas won the tip and as always, Bill Self had a play call for Udoka to get the ball down low. It was obvious that Mikesell was well coached and was defending properly, backing Udoka and not letting him establish position too close to the basket. A nice lob pass from Garrett into Udoka . Only Braun, starting for Moss, was on the strong side but deep in the corner. If Braun’s man attempted a double-team that would leave Braun open in the corner. But Udoka, the Nigerian Flash, did not allow anyone any time to dig down in a double team. He shoulder faked off of the dribble and turned to his right, one step and slam. Udoka had shown this move a bit over the last 10 games of the season. Clearly he was still learning. His already deadly close is was expanding. Coach Grant saw exactly what happened and knew he needed to make an adjustment. He felt Mikesell could adequately guard Udoka by baking him and not allowing him to establish position. But Udoka showed that was not the case. From that very first basket, Grant new his team was in for a real challenge. Grant had not forgotten the 78 points that Udoka, Dotson and Garrett hung on Dayton in their first match. The rest of the team scored only 12 points. But in that game, Mikesell had fronted Udoka most of the game forcing a lob. And lobs came in bunches with Udoka scoring 29 points on 12-15 from the field. Grant thought by backing Udoka, they could prevent the lobs thinking Udoka not likely to dribble. In the 5 possessions where Udoka was forced to dribble in the 1st game, 3 ended in missed FG’s by Udoka and 2 ended in steals by Dayton. Clearly, this was not the same Udoka of the first game and that was a terrifying thought.
But Dayton was not without their weapons as well. Obi Toppin was the player of the year in college and many considered to be the best overall offensive player in the country. Mikesell was a crafty and deceptively mobile big guy with a soft touch who led Dayton in scoring in the first game against Kansas. Crutcher, despite being the focus of KU’s defense in the first game scored 12 points on 4-9 from deep. He was clearly capable. And Ibi Watson scored 16 against Kansas previously and was an excellent shooter.
Garrett was on Toppin. Grant had a play called for Mikesell, wanting to force Udoka to guard, hopefully contributing to wearing him down. Plus, they wanted to discourage Kansas active switching by establishing Mikesell from the get-go. Mikesell got the ball in position and in a quick move, turned to lay up a lefty hook shot. But Udoka was just long enough to get a finger on the ball which deflected off the rim and into the always ready hands of Christian Braun. The game was not yet a minute old, yet Kansas had established that it was as hungry as Dayton, as prepared as Dayton and realistically, more talented than Dayton. Grant was not please with how the opening possessions had gone.
When you have the No. 1 player in America, you will not get shut out for very long. Knowing this was his last game as a collegiate, Toppin was committed to going out with a bang. And if Coach Grant made a blunder in his planning for this game it was buying into this commitment of Toppin along with the thought that Toppin would be the key to Dayton’s victory. Toppin was the leading scorer for the Flyers averaging 20.0 PPG. The Flyers averaged 80.0 PPG so Toppin was generally about 25% of their offense. In this game Toppin was getting touches every possession and it looked as though he was leaning toward 30-40% of the offense. This threw the balance of their offense off. Combine that with the fact that Toppin was being guarded by the best defender in America and the result was a somewhat diminished offensive efficiency from their norm.
Meanwhile, Dayton’s 18th rated defense was being shredded by Udoka Azubuike. By halftime, KU held a 38-30 lead and Udoka had 14 points and 10 rebounds. Azubuike had an All-American level senior season. But if you looked only at the las20 or so games of the season, it would be hard not to put Udoka at the top of the heap for All-American. He had simply dominated in the NCAA. His power had always been evident, but surprisingly, he was shooting 18-30 from the FT line in the NCAA and his defense was otherworldly, averaging almost 7 blocks per game. He had 3 blocks in the 1sdt half against Dayton.
Dotson was right on his average with 9 points at halftime, coming from 3 drives to the rim and 3 trips to the FT line. He had missed his only 3-point attempt and had not yet recorded an assist. But KU was getting plenty of assists and many of them coming from an unusual source. Marcus Garrett had 6 assists at halftime but Christian Braun also had 6 assists at halftime to go along with 9 points, all from the 3-point line on 3-4 shooting. Ochai Agbaji did not score in the 1st half on 4 shot attempts, but Coach Self would credit him after the game with playing perhaps the best defense he had played all season. Agbaji had primarily guarded Trey Landers. Landers averaged 10.1 PPG in the regular season but had come alive with a 16.5PPG average in the NCAA. Agbaji had shut him down to a single basket on 6 attempts. All 5 KU starters played at least 16 minutes with Dotson and Agbaji, playing all 20 minutes.
Dayton played reasonably well but they simply looked like a team whose 6th ranked offense was being overshadowed by KU’s top ranked defense. KU’s offense averaged 1.087 PPP on the season and in the 1st half they scored 38 points on 34 possessions for 1.118 PPP. Garrett, perhaps channeling his mojo from the Oklahoma game in Allen Fieldhouse when he went 6-9 from the 3-point line, attempted three 3 pointers in the first half missing all three. But he was deadly on his drives to the basket hitting all three for 6 points in the first half.
KU was cruising and gradually pulling away. They increased their lead over the 1st 8 minutes of the 2nd half to 12 points when disaster struck. Garrett, whose passing was one of the highlights and strong points of the game for Kansas, reinjured the foot that had been giving him trouble for most of the 2nd half of the season. On a drive to the rim, Garrett used a sweet crossover dribble to get by Toppin, who was guarding him. The scout on Garrett is to force him left since he almost exclusively drives to the right. Garrett faked right and crossed over and blew by Toppin. The help was not there since Braun rotated from the corner on the weak side up the sideline taking his defender with him. Azubuike set a world class screen on Mikesell giving Garrett a clear path to the rim. Toppin, using his quickness, recovered but just a fraction of a second late. As he stepped right to attempt to cut off Garret, he ended up stepping on Garrett’s sore foot putting Garrett immediately to the floor. Garrett is known as one of the toughest players in college. He played both his sophomore and junior seasons with nagging injuries. This would prove to be his last minutes for his junior season. After the fact, it was revealed that Garrett suffered a simple fracture. Doctors said it should heal completely but he would be out of action for 2 months. At that stage of the game, Garrett had 8 points and 10 assists. His brilliant passing was a big reason KU had built the 58-46 lead at the 12:03 mark in the game. With Moss and Garrett both injured and unable to play, Self was forced to go with his only remaining backcourt player, in Tristan Enaruna. The freshman had an up and down season. But the biggest concern was guarding Obi Toppin. Garrett had certainly not stopped Toppin but he had slowed him down, especially considering the heavy focus on getting Toppin the ball on almost every possession.
As it turned out, the loss of Garrett did not change the fortunes of Obi Toppin but it did change the fortunes of Trey Landers Self switched freshman Christian Braun to guard Toppin, and Braun showed while he was a burgeoning star. Giving up almost 4 inches and 40 pounds, Braun was able to continue just about where Garrett left off. But Landers, now guarded by Enaruna instead of Braun as he had been most of the game, was able to break out. Landers scored the next 13 points for the Flyers on 5 possessions as Dayton went on a 13-5 run to cut the lead to 4 at 63-59 at the under 8 minute timeout. Self switched Agbaji to guard the hot handed Landers with Enaruna on Ibi Watson. Meanwhile, largely unnoticed in this chess game of offense, defense, Devon Dotson had virtually shut down Dayton’s 2nd leading scorer and PG Aaron Crutcher. Crutcher has scored only 4 points and was unable to get a clean look with Dotson draped on him. Dotson, known as a solid face guarding defender was having perhaps the best defensive game of his 2 year career at Kansas.
Over the course of the next 3 minutes, Ibi Watson and Obi Toppin each scored 4 points as Dayton tied the score at 67 each with 4:54 to go. Then the play that would turn this game on it’s head. Dayton had the ball and was working through their half-court set. Coach Grant designed a play to get Crutcher a shot at the top of the key. Crutcher, came in to set a pick on Enaruna at the elbow looking like he was trying to free up Landers for a pick and pop. But in reality, Lander hoping to get Enaruna to play underneath him, actually set a pick on Dotson as Crutcher came around Enaruna and went straight back to the 3-point line at the top of the key where Ibi Watson delivered a pass right on the money. Crutcher received the pass rose, shot and swish. Dotson, was able to go around the screen and reached Crutcher just as he shot. Now this was a bang bang play and two things were happening at once that went against the Jayhawks. The first was a vociferous Bill Self was on the floor screaming at the official that the screen set by Landers was a clear and obvious moving screen and should have been called a foul. Both TV announcers agreed and replay showed that it almost certainly should have been called a moving screen. The official did not have the proper angle and thought that Enaruna had made the first contact and had pushed Landers into Dotson. Replay showed that Landers was the one who did the pushing. Self, perhaps a little frustrated with the misfortunes of losing two starters and seeing a lead evaporate, made his argument a little too forcefully and was assessed a technical foul. Meanwhile, Dotson, who recovered a fraction late was assessed a foul when he ostensibly touched Crutcher on the wrist. Replay was inconclusive but it did not appear that Dotson touched Crutcher. Crutcher ended up on the floor calling into question a flopping call. In any case, Dayton scored the three point basket and had 3 FT’s, one off the common foul and 2 for the technical. Crutcher made all three FT’s giving the Flyers a 73-67 lead with 4:30 left to play.
Things settled down for the Jayhawks as they buckled down on defense. Self had replaced Enaruna with McCormack. To the surprise of Many, Self moved Azubuike over to guard Toppin and put McCormack on Mikesell. Over the next 3 minutes, Azubuike showed why he might well have been overlooked as the top player in the country. Despite an intense focus to capitalize on this matchup and get Toppin the Ball. Toppin did not score another basket with Azubuike guarding him. On the offensive end, it became the Dotson and Azubuike show. From 4:30 down to 28 seconds, KU cut the lead to 78-77 and KU had the ball for the last shot. Self discussed after the game that he did not see removing Azubuike as an option even though he knew Dayton would likely try to foul Udoka if they had an opportunity. Despite Self’s praise of Azubuike’s free throw shooting prowess, he decided to not go to Azubuike for the final shot fearing Dayton would just foul him. Instead, he went with his next best weapon, a drive to the basket by Dotson.
KU ran the clock and with 7 second to play, Dotson made his move. Coach Grant was not the coach of the year for no reason. He suspected this would be KU’s choice of play and called a defense precisely designed to stop the play by forcing Dotson to either charge into a waiting defender or go wide forcing a more difficult and awkward shot. The defense was well executed and Dotson, alertly seeing that Mikesell was well positioned to take a charge, veered right and put up a shot over a stretching Toppin. It was Toppin’s turn to show why he was the player of the year. In an amazingly athletic play, Toppin managed to deflect Dotson’s shot. With 3 seconds on the clock. A great season by the Jayhawks was looking like it would end in a defeat in the National Championship game.
Toppin was well position to grab the ball as it was deflected up. But Azubuike, in one of the most intelligent and athletic plays of the season, quick stepped around Mikesell and just as Toppin was jumping to block the shot, Azubuike was jumping to grab the deflected ball. The ball came down equally into Azubuike’s and Toppin’s hands. Both players appeared to have a firm grasp on the ball with both hands. But in a display of superior strength, Azubuike ferociously rips the ball away and in one motion turns to shoot in an awkward left-handed hook. Mikesell, saw what was happening and he was stepping toward Azubuike when Azubuike did his ferocious ball ripping. Mikesell was in the wrong place at the right time and managed to make significant contact with Azubuike. The whistle blew as the buzzer sounded. A foul had been called on Mikesell but was had the clock expired. The question was not had the ball left Azubuike’s hands when the clock expired, but was in in a legitimate shooting motion when contact was made before the clock expired.
What ensued was a lengthy discussion between the refs with video review. After the initial discussion and video review, they confabbed for more discussion. Meanwhile , Azubuike, a 40% on the season FT shooter was cooling down on the bench. Conventional wisdom would say this was to the disadvantage of Azubuike and the Jayhawks. After a 5 minute discussion and review, the head ref signaled it was a foul and Mikesell and Azubuike would get two FT’s. To make matter worse, the refs decided the clock simultaneously expired so Udoka would shoot FT’s on an empty lane. That is when Coach Self called his final timeout. When asked what was said in that timeout in the post game interview, Udoka with a tear in his eye related Self’s instruction.
Coach looked straight at me and said. “Udoka, look behind me. Who do you see in the 2nd row behind the bench? That is your mother. She has come all the way from Nigeria to see you. She is proud of you regardless of of whether you make these FT’s or not. She is and will always be your biggest fan. I want you to look up at her right now. I want all of you to look up at her and your own family members right now.” Udoka continued, “So I looked up at my mom and she was smiling at me. Everyone was looking at their family members. I don’t ever recall feeling more part of a team than at that moment. After a moment Self told the other four guys that there is no way in hell they will stand back behind the arc and watch Udoka shoot FT’s alone. They will take their positions in the boxes in the lane even though the clock has expired. I think it really surprised the Dayton players when we all of us went to the FT lane. Then, before the ref threw me the ball, one by one his teammates came to the FT line and gave me a fist bump. I wanted to make the FT’s for my mom. I wanted to make the FT’s for my teammates. I wanted to make the FT’s for all the Jayhawk fans.”
Not to be outdone, Coach Grant calls his last timeout. Asked what Self said in that timeout, Udoka related, “First he just turned to me and said make the FT’s. Then he just told all of us to enjoy this moment and sear it into our memories. He said this will be a cherished memory for the rest of our lives. He wanted us to look at each other and then he turned and sat down on the bench and let us stand there with each other. All the guys told me they trusted me.”
Back on the line Azubuike squares up and that quickly the game is tied. With a national championship on the line, Udoka turns one last time to make eye contact with his mother in the stands. He turns, shoots and KU wins a National Championship.
Udoka is named MOP and Dotson, Garrett and Azubuike are all tournament 1st team along with Toppin and Cassius Stanley of Michigan St.
Don't worry about the mules, just load the wagon!!
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