NCAA championship: Kentucky-Kansas matchup 'a bullfight'

NEW ORLEANS?An analytical look at the Kentucky-Kansas game for the national championship:

When/where: Monday, 9:23 p.m. ET (CBS), Superdome, New Orleans.

Setting the scene

Many of us entered the 2012 NCAA Tournament expecting the championship game would be a rematch of a classic from the regular season. We didn?t end up with that. We ended up with a rematch of a fairly ordinary December game in which Kansas was ordinary for 40 minutes and Kentucky was ordinary for about 30. In those other 10 minutes, though, Kentucky simply wrecked Kansas, outscoring the Jayhawks 26-9 and pounding them with four 3-pointers, three blocks, three dunks, two layups and one steal.

?We fell into playing a pickup game with them,? Kansas All-American power forward Thomas Robinson said. ?You really can?t do that with Kentucky. They?ve got six pros, six talented guys. When they made that run on us in the second half, we had no answer for it because we weren?t a team. We weren?t together then.?

They are now. Kentucky, too.

This game should bear no resemblance to that mid-November night at Madison Square Garden.

Kansas? big concern

The advantage Louisville carried into its semifinal matchup with Kentucky was the Cardinals? reliance on zone defense, which by its nature makes driving the basketball more of a challenge. And driving is what the Wildcats do best. They do it much better, man for man, than John Calipari?s 2008 Memphis team. There is no Derrick Rose here, but UK can get the ball to the rim from all five positions.

Kansas can counter by attempting to draw charges. That worked to get UK freshman Michael Kidd-Gilchrist into foul trouble vs. Louisville and directly led to the game being closer than anticipated. Ultimately, however, Kidd-Gilchrist scored four baskets in the final eight minutes on layups or dunks.

Or it can counter by throwing out a gimmick defense, like the triangle-and-2 it slapped on North Carolina down the stretch of their Midwest Region final. It is rare for teams to play the entire 40 minutes in a gimmick defense, though. Utah did it in the 1998 West Region final against defending champion Arizona, but otherwise you?re mostly seeing it thrown as a change-up.

We know KU junior Travis Releford likely can stay in front of the player he is matched against, but what about the other positions?

?I think we got to the point there?s no question what we hang our hat on: that?s defending, rebound, be tough,? KU coach Bill Self said. ?That?s kind of who we are. If we make other teams not play well, then we have a chance to win. If we allow other teams to be comfortable, play well, we don?t.

?If Kentucky plays their best, they?re going to be so, so, so hard to beat by anybody. It?s easier said than done. We?ll try to figure something out.?

Kentucky?s big concern

The Wildcats occasionally have been affected by their environment, shall we say. Power forward Terrence Jones admitted as much after UK surged down the stretch to defeat Louisville, saying he was caught up in memories of last season?s Final Four loss and only invested a full effort once he saw the game slipping away. And Jones, a sophomore, entered the Final Four as one of the few players with experience at this level.

Younger teammates Kidd-Gilchrist and Marquis Teague have had moments of ineffectiveness. Kidd-Gilchrist stumbled into foul trouble against Louisville and shot 1-of-4 from the foul line, a rare lapse of precision for him. Teague was fine against the Cardinals, but he didn?t have the command of the ball he?d shown in earlier NCAA Tournament games against Iowa State and Baylor.

Calipari?s approach has been to divorce the tournament from the basketball, or at least to try. The circumstances of the games UK has played in the past three weeks are entirely different than what the Wildcats encountered all season, but they decline to acknowledge they?re playing for a championship Monday night.

?We?re just trying to play basketball right now,? UK senior guard/forward Darius Miller said. ?We?re looking at it as the next game. We?re not trying to hype it up or anything like that.?

Pivotal matchup

Robinson vs. Jones (and Anthony Davis). Robinson is the superior player to Jones, with greater size, strength and agility in his favor. He was stunningly good in the second half of Kansas' comeback victory over Ohio State late Saturday night, scoring 11 points to help the Jayhawks overcome a nine-point halftime deficit.

Robinson can operate away from the basket as a jump shooter, but he is most comfortable in the lane, where his broad shoulders give him great leverage and his dynamic first step gets him airborne before many defenders can react.

What is interesting about this matchup, though, is that Ohio State All-American Jared Sullinger, who is not a great leaper, was able to reject Robinson twice late in the semifinal. That suggests he might be vulnerable to UK?s supernatural ability to block shots, be it Jones directly against Robinson or Davis leaving Kansas center Jeff Withey to offer help. Withey is not a significant offensive threat, so Davis might feel the freedom to chase blocks and help contain Robinson.

?I haven?t seen too many players that match my emotion at times, or my physicality,? Robinson said. ?After watching Terrence all year, he went through that little slump he had at the beginning of the season but now he?s playing like the player I?m used to seeing.

"It?s going to be a bullfight."

Bottom line

It is too casual to simply declare Kentucky has better players, and that will be enough to decide the game in the Wildcats? favor. If one examines the individual matchups, there aren?t any in which UK has an overwhelming advantage.

Yes, Davis vs. Withey clearly favors Kentucky. But only a bit more than Robinson vs. Jones tilts toward Kansas. The toughness demonstrated by Releford, Tyshawn Taylor and Elijah Johnson could compensate for the considerable advantage Kentucky has in terms of perimeter skill.

So even though Kentucky has more players who will go on to play in the NBA?and the proper count is seven, not six; everyone seems to forget freshman sharpshooting forward Kyle Wiltjer?that only has so much value in a game in which injuries or curious calls by the referees can be so important.

Kentucky?s defense against Louisville was terrific along the perimeter through much of the game, walling off the lane and permitting few open 3-pointers, but the Wildcats often were sloppy and overzealous inside.

Jones and Davis chased too many blocks, which allowed Louisville to clean up on the offensive boards. Kentucky can?t have both players trying to block the same shot, which happened often against Louisville. There has to be a greater coordination of effort.

If Kentucky concocts a better defensive effort than Saturday, it has a chance to win this game comfortably.

Kansas? best approach is to keep the game close and use its physical strength and will to win to make the difference in the end. It has worked for the Jayhawks throughout this tournament. What has happened could happen again.

Read that however you like.

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