Call it the Larry Brown championship game
SAN ANTONIO | Call it the Larry Brown national championship.
Two of Brown’s former assistant coaches at Kansas — Memphis’ John Calipari and the Jayhawks’ Bill Self — tangle 20 years after Brown’s Jayhawks captured the title.
Calipari actually started his Kansas career under Ted Owens in 1982 and remained on the staff when Brown took over a year later.
Self was a graduate assistant on the 1985-86 team, and Brown, in the stands for Saturday’s national semifinals, had to burst with pride for both of them.
And feel disappointment, too. He used to coach at UCLA and is a graduate of North Carolina.
But any coach would be impressed with Saturday’s two victors. They rolled to surprisingly overwhelming victories — Memphis 78-63 over the Bruins and Kansas 84-66 over the top-ranked Tar Heels.
These weren’t the margins expected from the first Final Four that brought together four No. 1 seeds.
But it should be a marvelous final. It connects the Tigers’ star power in the form of guards Chris Douglas-Roberts and Derrick Rose against the wonderfully balanced Jayhawks.
How does it break down?
Start with their common emphasis, defense.
Both triumphs were paved with rugged man-to-man defense that severely disrupted the opponent.
The Tigers held UCLA to 37.5 percent shooting, and guard Darren Collison, who shoots 53 percent on three-pointers, missed his only attempt Saturday and went one of nine from the floor.
“You have to give them credit for what they did defensively,” Collison said.
Kansas hounded the Tar Heels into a season-low 35.8 percent from the floor.
“Defensively, they’re marvelous athletes,” North Carolina coach Roy Williams said of the Jayhawks.
Transition defense was huge for Kansas. North Carolina’s fast break never got started. The Tar Heels got 14 points off transition points. They usually get at least twice that many, but Kansas repeatedly got back quickly on defense.
The Tigers have tremendous size. Front liners Joey Dorsey and Robert Dozier are 6-foot-9 and off the bench comes Iowa State transfer Shawn Taggart, who is a better offensive player than the starter.
But it’s the guards who do most of the damage. Teams can’t match up with Chris Douglas-Roberts, Antonio Anderson and especially point guard Derrick Rose, a wonderful athlete.
Kansas counters with a team that can do damage from several positions. Saturday, they shot 53 percent from the floor and outrebounded a North Carolina team (42-33) that had been outrebounding teams in the tournament by nearly 13 per game.
The Tar Heels also had defeated those teams by a 25-point average. That’s how well Kansas played on Saturday.
A guess at the matchups: Kansas’ Russell Robinson on Rose, Mario Chalmers on Antonio Anderson, Brandon Rush on Chris Douglas-Roberts, Darnell Jackson on Dorsey and Darrell Arthur on Robert Dozier.
“It’s going to be a great matchup,” Kansas’ Sherron Collins said. “They play fast. We play fast. We both play aggressive. It’s going to be a good game.”
To reach Blair Kerkhoff, college sports reporter for The Star, call 816-234-4730 or send e-mail to bkerkhoff@kcstar.com
