Wojciechowski: KU just too good
— -- NEW ORLEANS -- Up by 26 with 1:29 remaining in the first half, a Kansas reserve leaned toward a teammate and said what everyone in the Superdome, including Marquette, already knew.
"This is over," he told the other Jayhawk scrub.
I'll take it a Nick Collison drop-step further: This Final Four is over. Finished. Rock chalked. The only thing left to do is to get the Jayhawks' ring sizes.
KU coach Roy Williams is 40 minutes away from deep-sixing the dreaded B.C.N.T.W.A.N.C. label -- Best Coach Never To Win A National Championship. Cold-hearted KU plays Syracuse in Monday evening's title game, not that it really matters who occupies the other sideline bench seats.
Whoever thought the Big Easy would mean Kansas' semifinal win against freaked-out Marquette? KU didn't simply beat the Golden Eagles, it reduced them to Final Four trivia status (What team gave up the second-most first-half points in Final Four history? Ta-da -- 59, by the fellas from Milwaukee). CBS' Billy Packer was so bored he drew stick figures and played tic-tac-toe on the telestrator. And here's an unsettling thought: the EA Sports All-Stars and Central Missouri State kept it closer than Marquette did.
Syracuse and the most complete player in the country -- freshman Carmelo Anthony -- will keep it to single digits, but a loss is a loss. Kansas is too experienced, too wired for sound, too devoted to Williams. Of course, Williams will need a chamois to soak up his Monday postgame tear-fest. Williams gets misty if he sees a photo of puppies, so just think what will happen when he realizes he can take off the Final Four o-fer collar. The TVA will have to construct a dam for his tear ducts.
The scary thing is Marquette actually felt good about the KU matchup. Of the three other teams in the Final Four, there was a feeling among MU's coaches that Kansas was the program you wanted to play first. The Golden Eagles had arrived in New Orleans fresh from victories against Pittsburgh and Kentucky. They had shot well in domes, first in Indianapolis, then in Minneapolis. In short, they were feeling a bit saucy. Plus, Marquette had all that Al McGuire karma working for it.
