North Carolina vs Kansas: 2022 NCAA Tournament game preview, TV schedule
By Joey Loose
North Carolina and Kansas come together to decide the next champion in the National Championship Game; will the Jayhawks claim their next title or do the Tar Heels have one more upset in them?
TV schedule: Monday, April 4, 9:20 pm ET. TBS
Arena: Caesars Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana
After months of basketball and sixty-six NCAA Tournament games across March and early April, the NCAA Tournament is done to its final two teams. It’s an unexpected matchup of two of basketball’s most prominent Blue Blood programs, with upstart 8-seed North Carolina getting a date with destiny against 1-seed Kansas.
North Carolina (29-9) has already made history and has just one more hurdle. Along the way to this title game appearance, they knocked out defending champion 1-seed Baylor and ended the coaching career of Mike Krzyzewski with Saturday’s impressive win over rival Duke. Despite the 8-seed, North Carolina has proven that they are no mere afterthought.
The starting five on Carolina play most of the minutes and are all important to the team. Junior forward Armando Bacot (16.5 ppg, 12.8 rpg) had 21 rebounds against the Blue Devils and is impressive on the boards. Sophomore guard Caleb Love (15.7 ppg, 3.7 apg) had 28 points against Duke and has been a consistent scoring threat. Oklahoma transfer Brady Manek (15.2 ppg, 5.9 rpg) has played hero more than once in this Tournament, and the contributions of sophomore guard RJ Davis (13.4 ppg, 3.7 apg) cannot be forgotten.
Together, this unit has been lethal at times in this Tournament, rising up to 16th in the most recent KenPom rankings, with a defense that has looked stellar at times. They built that big 25-point lead against Baylor in the second round and did adequate work to limit talented offenses in UCLA and Duke along this journey. The Tar Heels are a great rebounding team that has shot the ball at an exceptional rate across their five postseason games.
Across the court, Kansas (33-6) has already shown that they mean business in this Tournament. The lone top-seed to make this year’s Final Four, the Jayhawks turned up the defensive intensity against Providence and Miami during the regional, while the offense was firing from all cylinders in Saturday’s impressive 16-point win over Villanova. The Big 12 Tournament champions are one win away from their first title since 2008.
First and foremost, All-American senior guard Ochai Agbaji (18.9 ppg, 5.2 rpg) is the name to watch, as he just hit six 3-pointers in an impressive offensive performance against Villanova. Another star from that game was senior forward David McCormack (10.1 ppg, 6.8 rpg), whose 25 points led all scorers. Junior guard Christian Braun (14.3 ppg, 6.5 rpg) is a threat to score all over the court, while sophomore forward Jalen Wilson (11.0 ppg, 7.4 rpg) had a double-double against the Wildcats.
Kansas has risen to 3rd in KenPom’s ratings, boasting a top-tier offense and a defense that has been smothering at times in the Tournament. They are an efficient offense that can shoot the ball really well, and judging by some of those rebounding numbers you can tell they do that pretty great too. Kansas has really turned on the heat at times in recent weeks, especially in their last three halves of basketball.
After all that North Carolina has done to get to this point, it seems fitting that Kansas is the final hurdle for the Tar Heels. The two programs that Roy Williams coached for over a decade meet up in the National Championship just twelve months after his retirement. This title game matchup was certainly unexpected, but don’t expect Kansas to ease their way to a sixth straight Tourney win.
The Tar Heels will need their A-game on defense, needing to contain and limit second-chance opportunities for a Jayhawks squad that rebounds the ball even better than them. North Carolina will also need to focus their energy on shutting down Agbaji, whose offense fireworks really got things going for Kansas in the Final Four. If Agbaji beats you (and the rest of the Jayhawks are playing solid), then Kansas is hard to contain, as we’ve seen in recent weeks.
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Expect the unexpected in the NCAA Tournament, though this Kansas team looks almost too good to beat. North Carolina is going to give them one intense fight. If those Jayhawks catch fire offensively again, nothing North Carolina does will be able to stop them. It’s all going to come down to how that defense matches up, especially important for a pair of teams that don’t play too much of their bench. Could foul trouble have an impact?