UNC and Kansas will play in the college basketball national championship Monday night after Final Four victories in New Orleans.
Summary
The University of North Carolina and the University of Kansas will play in the men’s college basketball national championship Monday night after Final Four victories in New Orleans.
- UNC bested archrival Duke in their first NCAA tournament matchup 81-77. First-year coach Hubert Davis led the Tar Heels to a thrilling victory over retiring Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski, who launched his farewell tour at the start of the 2021-2022 season.
- The Tar Heels handed Coach K two defeats to cap his 47-year coaching career, first beating the Blue Devils in Coach K’s last home game before vanquishing their bitter foes in New Orleans.
- Kansas decisively defeated Villanova 81-65, avenging their 2018 Final Four loss to the Wildcats.
- Kansas will play for its fourth national championship on Monday, and Coach Bill Self’s second after his 2008 victory.
- North Carolina will compete for its seventh title. UNC’s championship appearance comes five years after their 2017 national championship comeback victory over Gonzaga after an agonizing last-second loss to Villanova in 2016.
- The New York Times coverage of the Kansas-Villanova matchup highlighted the Jayhawk’s desire to avenge their 2018 loss to Villanova and their defeat in their most recent championship appearance a decade ago.
- The Washington Post said Coach K’s career ended with “joy and agony in college basketball Armageddon.”
- CNN/Bleacher Report wrote No. 1 Kansas is a four-point favorite over No.8 North Carolina in the Big Dance Monday night.
- Fox News called the UNC-Duke game “an epic Final Four matchup that will go down as one of the classics in NCAA men’s basketball history.”
- The Daily Wire highlighted UNC Coach Hubert Davis’s postgame comments. Davis said, “All I’m thinking about are these kids, these players. I told them how happy I am that I get a front-row seat for them to go through this season and these experiences… it’s an honor.”
- National Review tried to argue “you don’t have to be a Duke fan to appreciate Coach K.” Maybe so, but likewise you don’t have to be a Duke fan to appreciate the cosmic justice of his all-about-me farewell tour ending in a Final Four defeat to Duke’s biggest rivals.
Author’s Take
Congratulations to Kansas. It’s a great day to be a Tar Heel!
Return to Freespoke 
© Dominic Moore, 2022
