Robinson is a large man with shoulder muscles the size of grapefruits and arms covered in menacing tattoos. Yet as he backed into Davis, he did so hesitantly, a player who averaged nearly 18 points this season was so shaken he actually looked a little scared. Robinson offered a meek shot attempt. Not only did Davis block the shot, he blocked it to himself.
When Rick Pitino, the Louisville coach, said recently that Davis reminded him of Bill Russell, this is exactly what he meant. Russell is perhaps basketball's pre-eminent shot blocker in a sport that values that specific skill as much as any other. Davis, if not yet of Russell's caliber, is at minimum at least vaguely reminiscent of him.
In the final game of this N.C.A.A. tournament, Davis wore Michael Jordan sneakers and Michael Jordan's No. 23. But Kentucky won the title because Davis controlled the game in a decidedly non-Michael Jordan manner, less with shots and more with swats. Kentucky defeated Kansas, 67-59, because Davis threw a block party in the Superdome. And what he did not block, he altered.
"I came to defend," Davis said afterward as he shrugged off a question about frustration like another weak shot attempt from Kansas. "I let my teammates do all the scoring."
With 10 minutes remaining and Kentucky in control, it even seemed fair to ask a question that would have seemed preposterous on any other night. Could a player win the Final Four's most outstanding player award and not score a single point in the championship contest?
Robinson's face, twisted into a scowl, dazed and confused, said yes. In the first half, he flung his mouthpiece to the ground in disgust. In the second, when Davis tapped the ball away from Robinson and Kentucky scored another layup, Robinson extended both arms, palms up, bereft of answers.
By the end, Robinson would ultimately get his points, 18 of them. Davis, whose first score came some 31 minutes in, would ultimately get his championship.
Davis's final line read something like basketball fiction: 6 points, 15 rebounds, 6 blocks, 5 assists and 3 steals. As a team, Kentucky blocked 11 shots, a Final Four record.
"For a guy to have 6 points, he did control the paint out there for a stretch without question," Kansas Coach Bill Self said, and "for a stretch" could have been accurately translated as the full 40 minutes.
When the game started, Davis assumed his usual position, down low, near the basket, protector of the paint. He helped inside on forward Thomas Robinson. He snatched a rebound with one hand and passed it in one motion to begin a fast break.
He anticipated a lob to center Jeff Withey, the player he primarily defended early, and backed off the ball handler. When Davis stole the pass intended for Withey, his hands were actually higher than the square on the backboard. He swatted one shot as if it mildly annoyed him and another as if it had insulted his family.
"Made them second-guess what they were going to do," Davis said in what was a massive understatement.
Davis missed his first three shots and yet made a forceful, obvious, immediate impact on the game. He recorded 3 rebounds, 2 assists, 1 steal and 1 block before the first television timeout.
What did not show up in the box score was also evident courtside. Like when guard Travis Releford ventured into Davis's territory, and Davis took one step toward him and Releford shot a runner that went up, up and away, somewhere toward the roof. The ball clanged off the back rim. Such are the subtle ways in which Davis can change a game — in this case, without jumping.
"I said this about a month ago," Coach John Calipari said. "What do you do to help us win when you're not scoring baskets. He does about 50 things."
For 13, 14, 15 minutes, Davis did not score. For most of that stretch, he did not even shoot, yet Kansas paid so much of its attention to him. He changed everything the Jayhawks did on offense, forced them into long jump shots and tentative forays inside. In the same way a shutdown cornerback removes part of the field from offensive consideration in football, Davis shrunk the court, allotted Kansas half as much room to operate.
Robinson scored eight points by half but also missed that many shots. Davis had a hand in that, too, literally, as he blocked two of them.
At halftime, Davis had not scored a single point, nor made a single shot, yet he took away so many of the former by altering so many of the latter. Kentucky led, 41-27, behind nine rebounds, four assists and three blocks for Davis who was threatening to obtain the strangest triple-double in basketball history.
All last week, it seemed as if Davis was everywhere. He won national player of the year honors despite less-than-gaudy offensive statistics. NPR ran not one but two stories about Davis, whose eyebrows, or the lack of separation between them, were subject to much debate.
The player with 180 blocks this season, with 23 shots swatted in Kentucky's first five games of the tournament, was everywhere again on Monday. But mostly at Kansas's expense.
Of the 10 shots he attempted Monday, he made one, and on this night, as confetti swirled all around him, as he tussled Calipari's hair and slapped hands with Kentucky cheerleaders, that mattered not even a little bit.
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