KU staves off UNC's comeback to get into title game

Kansas saw its one-time 28-point lead trimmed to four in the second half before going on another big run to close the game. Jed Jacobsohn/Getty Images

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SAN ANTONIO -- Early in the regular season, long before there were any brackets or No. 1 seeds, Kansas teammates Russell Robinson and Darnell Jackson were watching North Carolina destroy yet another overmatched opponent on television when Robinson declared to Jackson: "I want to play North Carolina."

It worked out pretty well for him.

"Everyone seemed to favor North Carolina all season," Robinson said Saturday night shortly after his team blew that perception to smithereens. "It feels good to beat them. To do it in the fashion we did feels even better."

There are some NCAA tournament games that play out exactly as predicted. There are others you never would have seen coming.

And then there are those where the No. 1 team in the country falls behind 40-12 in the first half of a Final Four game and winds up losing 84-66.

"We wanted to win big," said Kansas forward Darrell Arthur.

No kidding.

This may seem hard to believe now, but there once was a time when North Carolina was regarded as the most dominant team in the country.

Actually, it was last week.

Those Tar Heels of yesteryear beat their first four NCAA tourney opponents by an average margin of 25.3 points, featured a consensus national player of the year in their frontcourt and were regarded the most likely of the four remaining No. 1 seeds to cut down the Alamodome nets Monday night.

At about the same time, Kansas had to hold its breath to survive 10th-seeded Elite Eight foe Davidson and seemed relieved just to reach the Final Four.

If you had to pick one of the two to come out and Saturday night and race to leads of 28-10, 40-12 and 52-33, it would not have been the Jayhawks. Nor would you have guessed Tyler Hansbrough, two-time cover boy for a certain national sports publication, would take a backseat for much of the first half to a Kansas freshman reserve center named Cole Aldrich.

Both of these things did in fact happen here Saturday, and as a result, the Jayhawks stand one win away from hoisting a national championship trophy while the Tar Heels ... well, they'll always have those magazine covers.

"I know there's a lot of people out there that were doubting we could beat [those] guys," said Kansas forward Jackson. "They're just some guys in a North Carolina jersey. And we're the same."

For nearly the entire season, North Carolina played at a faster pace than its opponents. Saturday night, the Heels ran into a team that played even faster.

For nearly the entire season, Hansbrough had been able to outmuscle whatever defenders got thrown at him. Saturday night, he ran into a quartet of Kansas big men -- Jackson, Aldrich, Arthur and Sasha Kaun -- who limited him to a modest 17 points and nine rebounds.

All of this came to fruition, mind you, right from the game's first possession, when Arthur went up over Hansbrough for the game's first basket. Shortly thereafter, Jackson stole the ball from Marcus Ginyard and threw it upcourt to a racing Robinson for a three-pointer. Shortly after that, Arthur blocked Hansbrough, Rush grabbed the rebound and dashed for a lay-up on the other end. This would be a recurring theme.

Just eight minutes into the game, Kansas guards Robinson and Mario Chalmers did what they do best -- create a steal and turn it into a fast-break lay-in on the other end -- to jump to a 23-10 lead. It was about that point that you began to wonder whether the Heels were in over their heads.

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