money A brief, 2nd-half stretch saw Christian Braun propel Kansas basketball to the Final Four
CHICAGO — Kansas needed a player to deliver something, anything, to wrestle control of the game away from Miami.
That initial stretch of the second half was a start, the run that allowed the Jayhawks to tie the score at 38-38 with a little less than 17 minutes remaining. They’d trailed the Hurricanes by six points, 35-29, at halftime and had little momentum — if any. But right after that, Miami scored to go up 40-38 and Kansas followed that with another missed 3-pointer.
Enter Jayhawks junior guard Christian Braun.
After a steal by senior guard Ochai Agbaji, Braun recognized the fast-break opportunity, started running up the middle of the floor and threw down a thrilling dunk that tied the score. He smacked both hands on the court and yelled out with joy. After a defensive stop, as Kansas has started to set up its offense, Braun calmly caught a hand-off from Agbaji, rose up for a 3-pointer and nailed it to put the Jayhawks up 43-40 — their first lead since being up 27-26 in the first half.
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In total, the stretch lasted less than a minute in a game that spanned 40. But after a tumultuous start to the game, there was no doubt that there was life again within the Kansas faithful at the United Center. The Jayhawks never trailed again in a 76-50 NCAA tournament victory in the Elite Eight that ensured them a trip to this year’s Final Four.
“I think that we just needed some energy more than anything,” Braun said postgame, thinking back to those two plays of his. “When I hit that 3, it was definitely a big confidence booster for me and I’m sure it was the same for the team. We just needed some energy. I thought we were flat in the first half. That shot and the dunk, I know it helped me and I think it helped the team just get going.”
Braun’s five points helped spark what became a 10-0 run for Kansas. The Jayhawks hadn’t hit a 3-pointer until Braun's basket more than 24 minutes into the game. His 12 points all came before the 8-minute mark of the second half, by which time the Jayhawks were up double-digits — 59-46 — and the lead never dropped to single digits again. He added six rebounds and four assists and a block in nearly 36 minutes of action that cemented his place in the Midwest region’s all-region team.
Kansas senior forward David McCormack was on the all-region team, too. So was super-senior guard Remy Martin, the region’s most outstanding player. But the spark in this victory came from Braun, whose consistency so far in the NCAA tournament has been vital for the 1-seed Jayhawks.
Braun is averaging 11.3 points, 7.3 rebounds and 3.5 assists per game in the NCAA tournament. He’s played more than 30 minutes in each of the four games, and more than 35 minutes in each of the last three.
And now Kansas is one win away from playing for a national title. The Jayhawks were most recently in the Final Four in 2018. They played in the championship game in 2012, and their last national title was in 2008. Braun, a lifelong Kansas fan, was on a team that didn’t have a chance to make this run in 2020 due to the pandemic.
“It’s definitely a heartbreak feeling knowing that we definitely clawed our way to the top that year,” said McCormack, thinking back to 2020. “We just had a lot of great pieces and felt like we could go really far in the tournament. Now, this year just feels like we’re kind of avenging that year. Now that we have the opportunity, we’re going to make the most of it and just continue to grow as a team with each game. And just do what we weren’t able to do or didn’t have an opportunity to do within that 2020 year.”
Braun added: “I’d say the same thing. I think that we all knew we were a pretty good team that year. We were No. 1 for a long time. So for it to get canceled like that kind of sucked for a while. But I would say this team — losing that game last year in the tournament didn’t feel good for us either. So, honestly, we’re doing the same thing for that team last year. We’ve got a lot of the same guys. We’ve got Remy. But we just wanted to get back for our performance in the tournament last year. So, it feels good to go win this round.”
What awaits the Jayhawks in New Orleans is a Villanova squad that eliminated them in the Final Four of the NCAA tournament in 2018. Villanova is the South region’s 2-seed. It has its own star in graduate guard Collin Gillespie, who had a minor role in that 2018 contest.
Jordan Guskey covers University of Kansas Athletics at The Topeka Capital-Journal. Contact him at jmguskey@gannett.com or on Twitter at @JordanGuskey.
This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: How Christian Braun propelled Kansas basketball to the Final Four
