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Wonderful Game, Wonderful Champs

Kansas and Memphis put on a wonderful game for most of the way - each team counterpunched brilliantly, each exploited the others weaknesses and each team surely thought they could win it.

When Memphis built a nine point lead, however, with time winding down, it looked as if they'd done it. But as well as they played, Kansas never gave up and mounted a comeback which was worthy of a champion.

That Memphis, when you get down to it, basically threw the game away at the line, and when they failed to foul Kansas before the tying three - that can't take away from what Kansas accomplished. They had a tremendous run through the tournament and when Memphis had the game in their grasp, they never gave up.

Now comes the fun part, although not for Kansas fans: Oklahoma State, fueled by T. Boone Pickens bankroll, is looking at offering Bill Self a $4 million dollar salary and a $6 million dollar signing bonus. Yow! They may also be looking at Tubby Smith, who as a $3 million dollar buyout, which, of course, would be nothing for Pickens.

Until Self does whatever he's going to do, there's a cloud over the celebration. At the very least, he'll likely be able to leverage a huge raise out of it, since OSU is apparently looking at tripling his salary.