SAN ANTONIO — The place is called the Kronk Gym and it is known best as the spawning ground for seven-time boxing champion Thomas Hearns. It was hard by the Detroit home of Memphis guard Chris Douglas-Roberts and it was there, as a boy, that he too would work his craft.

"I did a lot of boxing, but I wasn't fighting anybody," Douglas-Roberts was remembering yesterday. "I just punched the bag or jumped the rope. I wasn't getting in the ring. Kronk is just a hard-nosed place where people go. The boxing ring, that's what Kronk is known for. But I went into the gym (on the second floor) and developed my game there."

In tonight's national title game, his Tigers will meet Kansas in what promises to be a classic heavyweight fight. These teams have proved themselves to be the class of this basketball season and enter their meeting fresh off victories as impressive as they were lopsided.

Each proved capable of raining points. Each proved capable of preventing its opponent from doing the same. Each featured guards who are garishly gifted. Each shut down guards with estimable reputations.

"I see it as a great matchup. Two teams that are very athletic," Jayhawks guard Russell Robinson says, barely containing a smile. "It'll be a fun game, one we've been looking forward to all year. We've been watching Memphis all season."

"It's going to be an all-out race," Tigers guard Antonio Anderson says, his smile in full view. "It's going to be a good time. Both teams are going to run it down your throat. It's the last game of the year. Everybody wants it. It's going to be an awesome time."

It is also going to be a mesmerizing dance between a pair of backcourts mottled with performers of outsized skills. In one corner: Anderson, the lockdown artist; Douglas-Roberts, who can score inside and out; and Derrick Rose, the sensational freshman point. In the other: Robinson, the savvy senior point; Mario Chalmers, an expert marksman from the perimeter; and Brandon Rush, the most gifted Jayhawk.

It's Ali-Frazier. You know what's coming.

Memphis prefers to play against straight-up man-to-man. Kansas coach Bill Self says the Tigers are about "driving straight lines, getting the ball to certain areas of the floor which creates penetrate-and-pitch opportunities, angles to drive it. They're great at creating isolations off of what they do."

Those isolations are primarily for Rose and Douglas-Roberts, and few — if any — have been able to stop them straight-up. Which means, says their coach John Calipari, "Kansas could throw a 3-2 (zone) at us. They've played that. They played box-and-one against (Davidson's Stephen) Curry. They could do that. They played triangle-and-two. They can do that.

"The only thing is we've seen every one of those ... (and) it doesn't matter what they play. We want to attack. We're going to try to attack the rim."

Just as the haymaker pulls the fight fan from his seat, those assaults on the basket will define this championship bout. But they will not settle who wears the crown. Something far more basic will.

"Defense," Douglas-Roberts says.

Says Rush: "We're both great on the offensive end, but it's going to come down to who gets the key stops."