Through two weekends of March Madness, this tournament had it all. It of course had the legend of a 16 beating a 1, but it also had now the run of Loyola-Chicago, a handful of buzzer beaters or last second shots to win a game, big collapses, and great performances. The one thing it didn't have was a truly memorable game. It had memorable moments, but no stand out game. Well, cross that off the list.
What Duke and Kansas did was provide one of the best college basketball games I've seen in years. Now, sure if this happened in the Final Four it would be even more meaningful, but that was a brilliant game, matching two blue blood programs, two Hall of Fame coaches, a number of great players from upcoming high draft picks to legendary seniors. Sure, it helps when Duke loses, and Grayson Allen has a terrible game including missing the game-winning shot, and Kansas gets back to the final four to vindicate their great coach, but as Bill Self said, even if the outcome was reversed, that would have been a ridiculous game.
18 lead changes. 10 other ties. The entire game was played between an 11-point range, from Duke up 4 to Kansas up 7, and Kansas up 7 only happened twice, once early in the second half which Duke answered with a 7-2 run, and then at the very end after fouling. Most of the game was essentially played between Duke up 2 and Kansas up 4, that was basically hte entire second half. No team ever felt comfortable with the lead, but both teams felt comfortable in terms of their actual play, and that is what makes this game special.
There have been other nice games in this tournament, from Michigan's ridiculous win over Houston, or the first three Loyola wins, or even the Texas vs. Cincinnati game back in the first round. But a lot of those were plagued with misses and defensive struggles and crazy shots. This wasn't. This was college basketball nirvana.
The coaching was insane, especially with Bill Self. He's now apparently 12-4 in his last 16 games against Duke, UNC and Kentucky. He gets up for big games. He had a team that plays basically 7 guys, five of which are guards, and somehow had his team outrebound Duke by 15. His offense was perfectly constructed to hit through Duke's heretofore great zone. Their defense was creative, doubling Bagley over and over again the second he touched the ball, which took Duke a while to get used to, and even going to a triangle-and-2 for a few minutes. This was one of Bill Self's msaterpieces, and it was so well deserved.
The game itself flowed so well, with big shots after big shots. Grayson Allen did nothing, but both Jr's, and Marvin Bagley were great. For Kansas, Malik Newman was a man possessed, and Devonte Graham was on fire. Svi Mykhailuk's huge three to tie the game was such a ballsy shot, especially after missing two wide open threes previously. The ball movement by Kansas was special in OT, whizzing it around to Newman with almost Spurs-esque precision. It was rhapsodic.
Another small piece of the game that helped was that it was played in a basketball stadium. The NCAA has started to somewhat walk back the constant use of football stadiums which started to become normal for some of the regional finals, and having it in a normal basketball arena made it so much better. The energy was palpable, even if it was a decidedly pro-Kansas crowd. The Duke fans came to make noise, and there were no real moments where either team had case to boo - other than maybe the blocking foul called on Wendell Carter, Jr., to knock him out of the game.
March Madness is sold as a way to watch the cinderella sotries, the ridiculous madness in a 64-team bracket happening simultaneously, and the 2018 vintage had both in spades. But what makes a great tournament are those types of games, whether it be the 2016 final between Villanova and North Carolina, or the 2005 Final between the top two teams all year that year (Illinois, North Carolina) which capped a ridiculous tourney preceding it. For this year, it may end up being this one, a classic between two bluest of the blue blood programs fighting down to the death.
