The NCAA Championship Game
By Raji, Moderator BangTheBook.com

The time is finally upon us. We have watched an entire season of college basketball. We watched great young freshmen make their mark in the game and great in conference play. We watched the great conference tournaments and feverishly filled out our brackets as the tournament seedings were announced. We watched those same brackets get shattered as great underdogs made the early run but when the dust settled, for the first time in history, all number one seeds made it to the final four in San Antonio Texas. The story lines have played out and the players and the coaches have been acknowledged of the best of the best but now it comes down to just two teams playing for the championship in college basketball.

Memphis

The first team to make the big game is Memphis. Memphis has held the number one spot most of the year in the national polls and won the conference tournament grabbing a number one seed for the NCAA tournament. Yet they were one of the first number one seeds that were predicted to make an early exit. No one outside of Tennessee thought this team had a shot to go this far, especially when they ran into Texas heading to the final four and the answered the call with a thumping of Texas. The critics still shunned it off and said there would be no way they would beat UCLA. After all UCLA had the experience and had been to the final four and were led by Kevin Love so there would be no way they could lose to Memphis but indeed they did. Memphis thumped the Bruins by double digits and Derrick Rose showed that he may be the best player on the court. The critics are quieter but still out there and Memphis has one more game to play.

Kansas

Kansas was the opposite of Memphis because they won all year and got respect for it. They came into the tournament as a number one seed and plenty of so called experts called on them to get this far. As they went through the teams to get this far they mopped the floor with lesser talent and it led up to a meeting with the North Carolina tarheels in the final four. The story lines were abundant as Roy Williams would be marching the opposing side line and had some history with Kansas. For sure this would be one of the better games of the year, but it wasn’t. The hype was over played and the teams took the court and North Carolina promptly fell behind big early. They started a valiant comeback but it was Brandon Rush for the Jayhawks that held on to the win and pulled away for a huge win for Kansas. Now they face Memphis and there is no more questions, no more doubting just one more game to play.

The Winner

This line has opened up at Kansas -1.5 and slipped to Memphis as a chalk in some places. The thing to know here is to look around as this line is jumping with the amount of action coming in on it. The winner of this game will have to play all facets of the game and be fundamentally sound. Coaching is a sweet edge but I just can’t get over the fact that Memphis can’t hit free throws. It has not hurt them so far but if this game is close it will. I like Kansas to win this game and win the NCAA Championship!