How the Kansas Jayhawks won the 2022 men’s national championship, and what’s

Men’s college basketball has a new national champion. The Kansas Jayhawks launched a historic comeback to prevail 72-69 over the North Carolina Tar Heels in Monday night’s final in New Orleans, the school’s fourth national title and second under head coach Bill Self, who also led KU to the 2008 crown. Kansas made history by overcoming the largest halftime deficit ever for a national champion, trailing 40-25 at the break before storming out of the locker room with an 18-6 run that eliminated any notion of a Tar Heels runaway. The previous largest halftime deficit for a champ was 11, attained by the 2001 Duke Blue Devils and 1958 Temple Owls.

With Kansas cutting down the nets to put a bow on the 2021-22 season, ESPN’s team of Myron Medcalf, Jeff Borzello, John Gasaway and Joe Lunardi took a final look at this historic national championship game, including what went right for Kansas and what went wrong for North Carolina in the second half. The ESPN quartet also reflected on the meaning of the Kansas triumph, of the past five months of college basketball and also took a look ahead at the personnel the Jayhawks and the Tar Heels have coming back in 2022-23.

What was the No. 1 reason Kansas beat North Carolina?

North Carolina and Kansas came together to give us one of the most thrilling national title games in years. With five minutes to play, Kansas had a 63-61 edge after being down 15 points at halftime. North Carolina’s offensive firepower and defensive pressure had created that cushion going into the break, but Kansas’ offensive efficiency helped it recover and take the lead in the second half. That 10-minute stretch for Kansas at the start of the second half, when it outscored North Carolina 31-10, kept the Tar Heels chasing it until the end of the game. In the final minutes, however, both teams had a chance.

The reason Kansas won this game was because it did to North Carolina what it did to Texas Southern, Providence and Miami in the NCAA tournament, as it went on one of its fabulous game-altering runs. It was a different team in the second half. Leaky Black picked up his fourth foul early, which took pressure off Ochai Agbaji, who had otherwise been hounded by the North Carolina wing. Jalen Wilson got hot after the break, and in general, the Jayhawks found the same gear they hit when they outscored the Hurricanes 45-17 in the second half of their Elite Eight game.

As Kansas rallied, you could see the fatigue affecting North Carolina. Armando Bacot, who turned his ankle in his team’s win over Duke, was limping early in the second half. The Tar Heels were tired of chasing Kansas players off screens and tussling on the block with David McCormack, whose sky hook over Brady Manek gave Kansas a critical three-point lead in the final seconds.

Kansas made 58% of its shots in the second half while UNC connected on just 28%. Throughout the postseason, Kansas was able to elevate to a level that no opponent could match, and the Tar Heels met the same fate.

And so KU hit the button again and joined the 1962-63 Loyola Chicago squad as the only teams to come back from 15-point deficits in the national title game to win, and secure Bill Self’s second…