Ronald Martinez/Getty Images

SAN ANTONIO – APRIL 07: The Kansas Jayhawks celebrate after defeating the Memphis Tigers 75-68 in overtime during the 2008 NCAA Men’s National Championship game at the Alamodome on April 7, 2008 in San Antonio, Texas.

Right before the tip-off for the first game of the NCAA men’s final four I looked over at Brandon Lopez and said, “Let’s just hope it’s not Memphis and Kansas in the final game. “I just felt like with what our coverage of this game could be that would be the worst scenario.

Of course I jinxed it and Memphis against Kansas it was. However, we ended up pleasantly surprised.

It turned out to be one of the top championship games of all time.

With Kansas down nine points with just about two minutes left, the Jayhawks were able to comeback and tie the game with a last second three-pointer to make the game go into overtime. In OT, KU was able to pull away for the shocking victory.

It marked a fantastic end to what was a month-long “journey” of coverage for Getty Images.

Throughout the month of March I traveled to Charlotte for the ACC Tournament, Little Rock, Ark. for the 1^st and 2^nd round, back to Charlotte for the East Regional and then finally in San Antonio for the Final Four. Lots of time spent in the south for a guy based on the west coast.

But I wouldn’t have traded it for the world. March Madness has always been my favorite event as I remember being allowed to miss class while in junior high and high school to watch games. Now I get to watch the games live and in person. So it’s hard to complain about the travel.

In San Antonio for the Final Four our crew once again continued to amaze me. Our three photographers (Ronald Martinez, Jed Jacobsohn and Streeter Lecka) captured all the emotion and our photographs ran in newspapers/websites/publications all over the country. Thanks as always to Bob Covington , our IT guru, for enabling Brandon and I to get the photos out to those clients faster.

One photo from the championship game stands out to me. Streeter was able to capture the last second three-pointer by Mario Chalmers to bring the game into overtime.

Streeter Lecka/Getty Images

SAN ANTONIO – APRIL 07: Mario Chalmers #15 of the Kansas Jayhawks shoots and makes a three-pointer to tie the game to send it into overtime against the Memphis Tigers during the 2008 NCAA Men’s National Championship game at the Alamodome on April 7, 2008 in San Antonio, Texas.

Now that college is done, it’s off to cover the NBA playoffs which start next week. Check the blog page for our NBA basketball playoff coverage.

Tags: March Madness, NCAA Basketball, photos

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