Johnson leads No. 2 seed Kansas in NCAA tourney

But it was Johnson's 3-pointer with just over 3 minutes to go that proved to be the turning point of the game. He spotted up from about 5 feet from beyond the arc and unloaded in one fluid motion, snapping the nylon and giving the Jayhawks their first lead.

"I was confident in the shot and I took it. I didn't want to second-guess it," he said. "I second-guessed a couple in the first half and I came up with air balls."

"He took that shot with a smile on his face, too," Taylor said. "He smiled when he shot it."

After he made it, too.

Purdue actually pulled back ahead on a pair of baskets by Terone Johnson, but Johnson pulled down a rebound and fed it to Taylor for a dunk. Then he came up with a steal and took it in for himself, giving Kansas a 61-60 lead in the closing seconds.

The Jayhawks held on from there.

"One thing that stuck in my head the whole time, Coach preached to us it's going to come down to one possession," Johnson said. "As a team, we thought about that. Maybe individually, but we thought about it. We knuckled down and put our past experiences into effect."