Ouch! That was my first reaction when I saw that North Carolina was trailing Kansas by over 20 points in the first half. But soon that ouch turned to a grimacing, "somebody please stop the bleeding!"

Well, much to my bracket's dismay, the bleeding never stopped. In fact it was more of a slow death as the Tar Heels started to mount a comeback – even pulling within 4 points – but then the Jay Hawks pulled out the arsenal they were using in the first half and never looked back. What was the end result? The Tar Heels lose the game by 18 points and are eliminated from the NCAA Tournament.

But I was able to take some solace in the fact that Memphis beat UCLA. In my own personal bracket I had North Carolina taking the title, but Memphis making it to the title game as well. So what was the secret to the success of Kansas?

In my opinion, they were able to silence forward Tyler Hansbrough and match him up with big guys like Sasha Kaun. Also Kansas played staggering defense that slowed down the run-and-gun tempo that North Carolina has enjoyed to great success all year. By slowing down Ty Lawson, Marcus Ginyard, and forcing three-point sharp shooter Danny Green to take some wild shots, the Jay Hawks proved the old adage right – "defense wins championships."


What was the key to Memphis' success then? Well, the short version, UCLA did exactly the opposite of what Kansas did. The longer version, UCLA let Memphis control the tempo (and the game for that matter) which they have done all year long. Freshman phenom Derrick Rose dropped 25 and Chris Douglas-Roberts drove the lane at will to score on Kevin Love and UCLA's Luc Richard Mbah a Moute.

For now, I will just ride out the last game of the tournament and hope that I still finish respectably. I guess all I can say to those who picked Carolina or UCLA: "better luck next year." 



Dan Olson writes for KSTW-TV in Seattle. All opinions expressed in this column are his.