By MIKE LOPRESTI
Gannett News Service

NEW ORLEANS - Two teams and one game left. Maybe, now, it is down to a matter of class.

Kansas is led by its seniors, Syracuse its freshmen. Something will be served Monday night in the NCAA championship game - be it patience, or youth.

Perhaps it will be Nick Collison and Kirk Hinrich, the Kansas veterans who have won 113 times and carried Roy Williams to the brink of a title he has cried and bled for, in what might be his last game as Jayhawks' coach.

"We've been talking about this forever," Collison said. "It would be the best way imaginable to go out."

"To explain what it would mean in words," said Hinrich, "I don't think I can do that.

"This is why I came to Kansas."

But then it might be Carmelo Anthony, the Syracuse teenager who has seized the imagination of this Final Four with his inexorable talent, and 33 points against Texas. And Gerry McNamara, another freshman who helped gun down the Longhorns.

"At this point in the year, we're not freshmen," said McNamara. "We haven't played like it. We didn't expect to play like it. If we play like freshmen tomorrow night, we're in a lot of trouble."

Added Collison, "They've proven they can beat a lot of good teams with freshmen. They're not intimidated by this scene at all."

In this, his 22nd tournament run, Jim Boeheim might have finally hit the jackpot with kids.

"You have to have special freshman," he said. "We do."

"It would be big for him," Anthony said of Boeheim. "But it would be even bigger for me."

In his fourth Final Four trip, Williams might finally be ready to break down the door. If so, he'll do it with Collison and Hinrich. They are both sons of high school coaches, and Williams felt so close to them as newcomers three years ago, he turned down the North Carolina job he had often dreamed about.

"At the time, it didn't really sink in," Collison said. "Ever since, it's meant a lot. I've always remembered that."

This time, Williams might take North Carolina's offer, leaving a long-sought national championship - his first, Kansas' third -- as his calling card.

Boeheim, in his third championship game, has waited long time, too. It is a match of hugely successful coaches who know what it is like to be jilted in the spring.

"It's probably an understatement," Williams said, "but perhaps it makes you a little more hungry."

"It's not going to be the end of the world for me if it doesn't happen," said Boeheim. "I'll feel bad, but I'll feel worse for the players."

Monday could be fiery. Syracuse scored 95 points in the semifinals, Kansas 94. There would seem to be two main points of conflict.

One is the Kansas transition game, which buried Marquette with quick outlet passes that led to easy baskets.

"That's not going to scare Syracuse," Williams said.

But if the Jayhawks (30-7) can push the ball up quickly, they could make it difficult for Syracuse to get into its zone defense. Kansas has had some tough moments against zones this season.

"It's not that we're any faster than anyone else," said Kansas' Keith Langford. "It's just that we're going to do it every time.

"We're probably going to have to crank it up a gear."

Added Anthony, "We know they're going to try to push it down our throat."

And if the Orangemen (29-5) can't slow down the Jayhawks ...?

"We'd be in trouble," Boeheim said.

The other is what Kansas can do against Anthony, the hottest teenager in the land, even counting LeBron James.

The freshman wrecked Texas not only with his scoring, but also his rebounding and passing and leadership. It was a most unfreshman-like performance.

"Something I was born with," he said. "Leadership."

Said Langford, "Carmelo Anthony could be the exception to experience."

Funny he should mention that, for it is Langford who will probably start against Anthony, giving away four inches.

"It's the kind of thing where you want to challenge yourself," Langford said. "He's almost a prodigy."

If Anthony has another big game and Syracuse wins, he could be the first freshman to be MVP of the Final Four since Louisville's Pervis Ellison in 1986.

Kansas likely won't resort to a zone to stop Anthony. Williams said if there was a line of all coaches, Boeheim would be at one end as the best zone coach and he'd be at the other as the worst.

"I'm not being humble," he said. "I'm just being truthful."

Langford has a superstition where he changes his shoes at halftime if the first half goes badly. He'll have three pairs at the Superdome Monday.