Kansas Crowned in Win over Memphis

It’s funny what one shot will do. When Mario Chalmers’ three-pointer swished through the nets, sent the game into overtime and essentially won the national championship for Kansas, Bill Self went from a good coach to one of the elite coaches in all of college basketball.

Sure he was already one of only four coaches to take three different schools to the Elite Eight, but until this year, Self was known for never being able to reach the Final Four.
Reaching the Final Four is one thing, but winning the national championship is another. Sure, Self had already gotten over the hump and reached college basketball’s greatest weekend, but when the clock hit zero on Monday night, he joined an elite group of coaches that can say they were national champions.

Bobby Knight, John Wooden, Coach K … All of the legendary coaches in the game today have cut down the nets and won a national championship. Now it’s Bill Self who has joined the party and can say the same thing.

But just what would have happened had Chalmers’ shot rimmed off and Kansas not won the game? How would Self have been remembered then?

“The outside public may view people that win a championship differently,” Self said after the game, “but all coaches know you don’t get smarter because a hard shot goes in than if it doesn’t go in.”

And he’s right. He didn’t physically change with the result of Chalmers’ historic heave. He’s the same coach he was before the shot and he’s the same person he would have been had the shot rimmed off, although he’s going to get a big raise from Lew Perkins and the Athletics Department staff in the near future because of it.

Think of two short weeks ago, when the shot by Jason Richards of Davidson missed to the left and the Jayhawks celebrated a trip to the Final Four. Had that shot been six inches to the right, Davidson would have been headed for San Antonio and Kansas would never had even had a chance to bring home the title. Six inches — that’s how close the Jayhawks were from not even making the Final Four.

Kansas fans who were bitter at Roy 'Choke' Williams for leaving for North Carolina cheered for the former coach when he was shown wearing a KU sticker while sitting in the stands. But in 15 years as the coach at Kansas, Choke Williams never did what Self was able to do on Monday night. With one high-arcing three pointer, Kansas fans around the country were finally able to forget about Roy and totally embrace Self as their guy.

With rumors that Self’s alma mater, Oklahoma State, is preparing to offer boat loads of money to sway Self back to Stillwater, Kansas fans can only hope that Perkins will be able to keep Self in Lawrence.

The first round losses to Bucknell and Bradley, which had fans clammoring on message boards for Self to be fired, now seem like a distant memory. The Jayhawks are national champions and Self has enshrined himself as one of the elite coaches in America and one of the all-time greats at Kansas.

And as crazy as it sounds, it’s all because of one shot. One three-pointer, from the top of the key. That’s all it took to not only change the outcome of the game, but to change the legacy of Bill Self.