NCAA Tournament - National Championship Game Analysis - Memphis vs Kansas

Did you expect to see any other picture up top for this post?

Well, after Chris-Douglas Roberts dunked all over Kevin Love and UCLA and then Kansas held on against UNC, that made my original prediction of Kansas vs Memphis look good.

Now I picked Kansas to beat Memphis in the final but I'm still going to do an analysis of the game and truth be told I probably want to see Memphis win. So after Saturday's games, Kansas is still ranked # 1 in overall efficiency and Memphis has jumped up to # 2, so this will be a true national championship.

Kansas(1) vs Memphis(2): Looking at the rankings below, this game is pretty even except for the fact that Kansas is better than Memphis in Offensive Effective FG%. All the other match-ups are too close to call though and it looks like this game should be a great one.

I expect Kansas to continue their balanced scoring but I think for Memphis to win they will need Derrick Rose and Chris Douglas-Roberts to continue their stellar play. If Kansas can contain those two guys then you HAVE to give the advantage to them. So far nobody has been up to that challenge but if anyone can do it then it's Kansas. To me that is the the biggest key to this game.

There are two other areas that I feel could affect the outcome of this game: 3-Point Shooting and Rebounding. I think since both of these teams play good defense that each team might settle for 3-Point shots. Memphis is not a strong team from the outside and Kansas let UNC get back in the game when they started launching up too many 3's. So I think one of them could shoot their way in or out of this game from deep. Kansas is more likely to catch fire from deep though, they just can't afford to fall in love with the 3.

As far as the rebounding, if one team can control the offensive boards they will definitely have an advantage. These are both good rebounding teams and I would expect the battle down low to be a key in this game. Statiscally, they are both in the top 30 in offensive and defensive rebounding, so it is too close to call as to who will win this battle.

Offensive Efficiency - Kansas(2), Memphis(4)
Defensive Efficiency - Kansas(2), Memphis(3)
Off. Effective FG% - Kansas(5), Memphis(51)
Def. Effective FG% - Kansas(8), Memphis(4)

Of course, I have picked Kansas over Memphis since the beginning so I will stick my Kansas pick. Whatever the outcome is, I will be happy to see either team win. They are both very strong teams in overall efficiency, so either one would be a deserving champion.