The final college basketball game of the season takes place tonight. The Kansas Jayhawks will take on the North Carolina Tar Heels in the championship game of the NCAA Men’s Division I Basketball Tournament. The game will start at 9:20 p.m. ET and air on TBS.
Kansas comes into the game with a 33-6 record. The Jayhawks have played in 16 Final Fours and are competing in their 10th national championship game. The last time they have won the national championship was in 2008 when they were led by Mario Chalmers, Brandon Rush and Darrell Arthur. The 2022 Jayhawks are led by Ochai Agbaji who is averaging nearly 19 points and five rebounds per game. The 21-year old is a consensus first-time All-American and was named Big 12 Player of the Year.
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“I told him that right after we won the game against Miami,” Kansas head coach Bill Self said when talking about Agbaji, per 247Sports. “I said, ‘I don’t know if you realize this but it can be.’” I mean, you stop and think about it. Player of the year in the league. Win the league. Win the [Big 12] tournament. First Team All American. Get to the Final Four. I mean Devonte [Graham] did those same things. But he didn’t win it. And Danny [Manning] did those exact same things, except they didn’t win the league and they didn’t win the conference tournament. But they still won it. So Ochai would have a chance to go down as the best year that anybody’s ever had with the exception of Danny because Danny was National Player of the Year.”
North Carolina is playing in its 12th national championship game. The Tar Heels have won six national championships in their history with 2017 being the last time they held the trophy. Five of those national title wins came from head coaches Dean Smith and Roy Williams. This year, new head coach Hubert Davis is making an impact with the program. But he knows what it takes to win at North Colina as he was an assistant coach with the team in 2017 and he played for UNC in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Davis was a member of the 1991 team that reached the Final Four.
“It really is, Davis told reporters about this year’s team having the “connectedness” like the squad in 1991, per 247 Sports. “Not just in our last game. It was the most important thing throughout the entire season. This program is built on relationships. That’s the foundation of what has made Carolina basketball, Carolina basketball. One of the things throughout the summer that I made the guys do, is they have a requirement to stop by my office at least three times a week.”
