March Madness Classics: Kansas Wins 2008 NCAA Championship

By: Kels Dayton

Imagine a night when your dreams actually come true. It’s early April, and the crisp, young-spring air signals the end of a college basketball season and the beginning of a beautiful few months of sunlight and summer bliss.

You’ve been waiting for this night all your life; dreaming about what it would feel like if your favorite team ever won the national championship.  You flash back to five years earlier, when your heroes from Kansas nearly cut down the nets. You were heartbroken, crushed, destroyed by Gerry McNamara and his record-setting barrage of threes (six), and your team’s sudden inability to knock down free throws (Kansas went 12-30).

Your team opens up a first-half lead, then surrenders it for much of the second half, trailing by eight with just over a minute to go. You think it’s all over. Deja vu. Another heartbreaker.

Then, in a few glorious seconds, your boys come through. Collins makes the steal, then hits from three. Memphis’ Derrick Rose misses a few free throws. And Chalmers hits that miraculous three. You win it in overtime. Euphoria. So what do you do with that emotion? That incredible feeling?  You make this video below.

Okay, I did all that…. but it could be you and your team. Dream on.

Kansas Wins Championship