Factors say N. Iowa can't beat Kansas but this is why we watch

OKLAHOMA CITY -- Northern Iowa has played Kansas just once, and that was in 1973, but the truth of the matter is this: Northern Iowa plays Kansas every year in the NCAA tournament.

The names are different, but the game is the same. There's a smaller, slower team from a smaller, weaker conference. That's Northern Iowa. Or George Mason. Or Davidson. And then there's a bigger, faster team from a bigger, stronger conference. That's Kansas. Or Connecticut. Or Georgetown.

This game happens every year. Now, before you get mad at me there in Kansas, don't misunderstand. I'm not saying Kansas will lose Saturday. In fact, I'm on record as saying Kansas won't. My bracket, such as it is, has Kansas winning the whole thing. Kansas is that big, fast, strong, deep, good, great, unbeatable. Kansas is loaded, top to bottom, from the Hall of Fame-bound coach on down to the All-American point guard to the All-American center to the Freshman All-American wing to the eighth man, a kid named Tyrel Reed, who shoots 47.2 percent on 3-pointers but can't get more than 15.3 minutes of playing time per game.

But this game happens every year. This sort of upset is so common, it has become a cliché -- yet it remains unfathomable. Northern Iowa, beating Kansas? Impossible. No way it can happen. Northern Iowa doesn't even belong on the same court with Kansas, and the players from Northern Iowa sort of know it. Two Northern Iowa starters, Adam Koch and Ali Farokhmanesh, were the featured UNI players at the team news conference Friday when a wiseass reporter (not me) asked them this question:

How many players at Northern Iowa could start for Kansas?

The players from Northern Iowa started laughing.

Because that's a funny notion. A guy from UNI, starting at Kansas? Not at center, where Kansas has All-American Cole Aldrich. Not at point guard, where Kansas has All-American Sherron Collins. Not at small forward, where Kansas has Freshman All-American Xavier Henry. Kansas has Marcus Morris (12.7 ppg, 6.2 rpg) at power forward, so not there either. Maybe, just maybe, a guy from Northern Iowa could start ahead of Kansas shooting guard Tyshawn Taylor (7.4 ppg, 3.3 assists, 37.3 percent on 3-pointers) ... but then again, Northern Iowa's shooting guard is Farokhmanesh. And he was one of those guys giggling at the question.

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So Northern Iowa can't win this game. That's what your intellect tells you, and something even more basic than intelligence. It's common sense. If Northern Iowa doesn't have a single player who could start for Kansas, and if Northern Iowa doesn't have a coach who can match Kansas' Bill Self for Final Fours or national championships, how can the Panthers win?

Because they can. Because it happens. George Mason beat Connecticut in the 2006 regional championship, an upset I said would never happen. And if anybody should have known better, it was me. I'd been there on press row for George Mason's "upsets" earlier that tournament against North Carolina, Michigan State and Wichita State. But George Mason had a bunch of guys who were hoping to play professionally in some small country in Europe, and UConn had a bunch of future NBA lottery picks. Intelligence said George Mason couldn't win. So did common sense. And so did I. Oops.

You won't find me saying that again. At least, not today. Not when Northern Iowa, the ninth seed in the Midwest Regional, about to play Kansas, the No. 1 seed in the whole damn tournament.

This game is like all the others. There's a tortoise, and there's a hare. And that's the secret, actually. The tortoise slows down the game, limiting possessions, which means limiting the number of times the other team can score. It's the same thing that happens in football when a physically outmatched running team grinds out the clock to keep the ball out of the hands of the more explosive, more talented passing team. Doesn't always work, of course, but when it does ... you understand why.

So if Northern Iowa beats Kansas, we should understand why ahead of time. Northern Iowa milks the clock on offense, turning down average shots for good ones. According to stat freak Ken Pomeroy's website, Kenpom.com, Northern Iowa is 345th in the country in possessions per game. There are 347 teams in Division I. Northern Iowa isn't just a tortoise, but a three-legged tortoise. And Kansas is a hare, averaging nearly a dozen more possessions per game than the Turtles Panthers.

Keep the ball out of Kansas' hands as much as possible, and Kansas can't score as much as usual. And when the ball is in Kansas' hands, Northern Iowa will guard like very few teams can. The Panthers are second in the country in scoring defense at 54.3 points allowed per game. Kansas is fifth nationally in scoring offense at 81.8 ppg.

That's a swing of more than 27 points per game. Somewhere in that swing, the game will be won. And lost.

Northern Iowa can't be the team to win, though. Intelligence says so. Common sense says so. Of course, Kansas' coach says otherwise.

"To me they're not Cinderella," Self said. "Northern Iowa can beat anybody in the country. That's not a Cinderella team. Lehigh, [the No. 16 seed Kansas beat on Thursday] night, that was more of a Cinderella team. Northern Iowa, if they played a series with many, many teams across the country, they'd have success in that series -- let alone a [single] game."

Anything can happen. That's why we watch.