Ed Hightower did his best to overshadow the National Championship game. Standing over every call he whistled for a good 15 seconds as he made his customary poses and predicted calls, he could do nothing to prevent the University of Kansas from winning their 5th National Championship, and first since 1988. Brandon Rush missed a wide open layup with a couple of minutes to go in overtime, but got his own, wide open rebound and put it back to seal the deal for KU, and Mario Chalmers hit a miraculous, game tying shot in regulation, forcing Memphis to rely on a 6th man substitute in place of the fouled out Joey Dorsey, to try and stop the mighty Jayhawks in the extra frame.

Take a good look at those 4 people because they won’t be back for next season. Dorsey is a senior and projected 2nd Round draft choice for the NBA. Rush is a 1st rounder, Chalmers is a fringe 1st rounder and Hightower should definitely retire or be fired. The guy takes an unnecessarily absorbent amount of time-wasting calls. If it’s a foul, call a foul. No need to take 10 seconds contorting your body to the motion you thought the guilty party was making, just whistle, call the foul, and move on. I even saw other officials trying to speed his antics up. Please NCAA, no more Ed Highclowner.

Now then, on to the game. What a terrific championship we saw. Memphis down 5 at the half. Back and forth action and awesome athletes. Kansas had trouble getting around the perimeter defense of the long arms of the Tiger defense. On the other end, the Jayhawks returned the favor, trying to muck up the powerful and explosive Memphis offense. The 2nd half started as a bang for Memphis as they immediately jumped out to a 5-0 run that tied the game. It continued to be tight throughout, until a few minutes left in regulation when Memphis held a seemingly insurmountable 60-51 lead with 2:12 left in the stanza. From then on, Kansas kept making their shots and Memphis kept missing their free throws, which set up the Mario Chalmers game-tying 3 with a 2.1 left. The overtime was just a denoumat as there was no Joey Dorsey, momentum had drastically switched, and the bigs for KU made their impression. Kansas jumped out to 69-63 lead and held on for the 75-68 victory and 5th National Championship for the historic program. (1922, 1923, 1952, 1988, 2008). It should be noted that no member of the KU team made 1st team all conference. It speaks to the value of the word, “team”. Congratulations Kansas Jayhawks, 2008 National Champions!!