Jayhawks’ season of comebacks ends one victory short of crown
April 3, 2012 - 1:03 am
NEW ORLEANS -- Kansas managed to come back time and again this season, seemingly no deficit too big and no odds too long for a team of overachievers.
The Jayhawks finally dug a hole too deep Monday night, and ran into a team from Kentucky with enough firepower to prevent them from digging all the way out.
After whittling an 18-point lead to five in the closing minutes, Kansas finally succumbed in the NCAA championship game. The Wildcats made enough free throws down the stretch to preserve a 67-59 victory, bringing the scrappy Jayhawks' dream season to a disappointing end.
"They had us on our heels, and really controlled everything the first 20 minutes," Kansas coach Bill Self said. "We got the game we wanted it. It was a muddy track and we had opportunities to make some plays to cut it to a one-possession game late.
"We came up short," Self added, "but I don't think we lost. I think they just beat us."
Kansas had made a habit of waiting until things were dire to kick it into gear. It happened against Purdue and North Carolina State earlier in the tournament, and against Ohio State in the semifinals, when the Jayhawks came back from 13 down to reach the title game.
"We've been fighting all year. We're hard-working guys. Just tough and want to fight," Kansas guard Tyshawn Taylor said. "The fight never stops with us."
It didn't stop until the bitter end Monday night.
Kansas hung tough through the opening minutes, getting the kind of grind-it-out game that it wanted. But the Wildcats eventually turn it into a track meet, and a brutally efficient run midway through the first half turned a 23-17 lead into a 39-21 advantage.
It was all uphill for the Jayhawks from there.
Thomas Robinson had 18 points and 17 rebounds for Kansas, the All-American doing his best to spark a rally. But the junior forward's points came largely on volume -- he was 6 of 17 from the field, harassed and harangued all game by Kentucky freshman Anthony Davis.
"A lot of times, I tried to go to my left shoulder, but I would see Anthony over top," Robinson said. "He definitely impacted the game with the way he stretched the defense."
Kansas finally got a spark from Taylor, the senior guard whose streaky shooting has been a sore spot for Kansas throughout his checkered career. He made his first 3-pointer of the tournament (after 20 misses) to get things going, and added a three-point play moments later, before two free throws by Robinson trimmed the Kentucky lead to 59-52.
"They'd been in that situation before," Davis said. "They just kept fighting."
Las Vegan Elijah Johnson (Cheyenne High) hit a 3-pointer a moment later, and Robinson made two more foul shots, and Kentucky coach John Calipari began to look nervous for the first time all night.
"You have to give Kansas credit," he said. "They didn't stop."
The veteran Jayhawks kept chipping away until Taylor missed a shot with about a minute left.
Robinson squandered an opportunity to make it a one-possession game when he lost a loose ball along the baseline, and perhaps his team's best chance slipped away with it.
"No one told us we were going to lose except the scoreboard. That was our mindset," said Johnson, sniffling in the locker room after his 13-point performance. "We said, 'Hey, if they're going to beat us, they're going to remember us. They're going to feel the last of us.' And that's what we did."
Kentucky managed to coax the final few minutes off the clock, making the free throws that Calipari's Memphis team missed against Kansas in the 2008 title game.
As fireworks blasted and streamers rained from the rafters, Kansas slowly trudged off the elevated floor inside the Superdome. A team that once rallied from 19 points down to beat Missouri and that had survived so many nip-and-tuck battles in the NCAA Tournament was left to wonder how things had gone so sour when it mattered most.