Malik Newman leads kansas past duke and into the final four

It does, and it did — it was Newman’s fifth 3-pointer of the game, all coming after halftime. He finished with 32 points, none more crucial than the 3 that put Kansas up by 81-78, a lead the Jayhawks would not relinquish. They had spent months working out how to get Newman those corner-3s, and when they succeeded on Sunday, the result was a huge celebration in front of thousands of their fans.

Kansas, a No. 1 seed, held on for the next 1 minute 49 seconds to beat second-seeded Duke, 85-81. The Jayhawks will head to the Final Four next weekend in San Antonio, where they will play another top seed, Villanova. The winner of that game will play the winner of Loyola-Michigan for the national championship on Monday, April 2.

Grayson Allen, the senior who on Sunday completed his tenure as the latest in a long line of Duke villains, nearly won the game for the Blue Devils at the end of regulation with a drive and a shot that banked off the backboard and rimmed out as time expired.

“That was an epic game,” Kansas coach Bill Self said. “One of the best ones, if not the best, that I’ve ever been a part of.”

Entering Sunday’s regional final, Kansas was 2-5 in Elite Eight games during the Self era, losing at this stage in each of the past two seasons. If there was a persistent knock on college basketball’s most consistent program, whose streak of 29 consecutive NCAA Tournament berths is the longest ever, it was this: always good, rarely great.

“It’s heartbreaking,” said senior guard Devonte’ Graham, who started in both losses the previous two seasons.

“You think about it all the time,” he added.

Though the lower seed, Duke was favored by oddsmakers on Sunday. All five players in its starting lineup, four of whom are freshmen, could be first-round NBA draft picks.

But the young Blue Devils were up against an overwhelmingly pro-Jayhawks crowd. You could hear it in the roars when calls went against Kansas, as they often did.

The Jayhawks found some good fortune when Duke freshman Wendell Carter Jr. — not the team’s most heralded player, but quite possibly its most valuable — ran into early foul trouble. They may also have gotten a little indirect luck when their own starting big man, Udoka Azubuike, also got into early foul trouble, forcing them into a 3-point-centric strategy that proved just the thing to beat Duke’s zone defense.

Despite a size disadvantage, Kansas dominated the boards, outrebounding Duke by 47-32. Though Duke’s freshman big man Marvin Bagley III, a likely NBA lottery pick, had a big game — 16 points on nine shots, with 10 rebounds — it may have been bigger had Kansas not aggressively double-teamed him when he got the ball down low.

Both teams came out cold; Duke’s first two 3-point attempts did not even hit the rim. Like heavyweights feeling each other out in the early rounds, Duke and Kansas deployed several different lineups, trying to figure out how to beat the other.

The freshman point guard Trevon Duval was the quickest to hit his stride, emerging as Duke’s best player in the first half. In the final minute he had a dunk and sank a jumper, giving him 13 points and Duke a 36-33 lead. He finished as Duke’s scoring leader, with 20 points along with six assists.

In the second half, Kansas appeared to solve Duke’s zone defense. Shortly after halftime they found Newman for two open 3-pointers, and a third for the junior Lagerald Vick, giving Kansas a 44-39 lead.

Carter kept the Blue Devils in it when he was on the court, scoring 7 of their 11 points in one stretch and providing a crucial combination of size and mobility on defense. But he fouled out a little more than two minutes into overtime, leaving the Blue Devils fatally vulnerable.

In overtime, Duke drew first blood, with Duval driving for the layup, but the Kansas senior Sviatoslav Mykhailiuk quickly responded with his third 3-pointer of the game. He finished with 11 points and 10 rebounds.

Asked after the game whether he had thought Newman was capable of such a performance, Vick said, “You ever watch his AAU clips? You’ve got to watch those.”

But Newman’s performance was a product of both Kansas’ planning and his natural abilities. For months, the Jayhawks had run drills in which they placed Xs at the corners; the idea, the assistant coach Kurtis Townsend said, was to spread the floor.

In the first half, they noticed that Duke’s zone was more of a 3-2, with three guards up top, as opposed to the more-common 2-3. At halftime, they made a concerted effort to place a man in the corner to draw one of Duke’s two big men away from the basket.

From there, the key to the zone-break was Vick, whose job was to “flash” to the foul line, get the ball and make a play. On Newman’s final 3, he said, “I had the shot, but I saw Malik open.”

He added: “I’ve got faith in my shooters.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.