New Orleans ? Kansas University scores 94 points in winning its Final Four national semifinal Saturday night, then Syracuse goes the Jayhawks one better by scoring 95 in its semi.

Don’t you just know CBS, which pays the NCAA 852 jillion dollars for the exclusive television rights, is drooling about the prospect of a close, feverish high-scoring championship game tonight?

Kansas and Syracuse do indeed boast the potential for hefty TV ratings because both are freewheeling offensive teams. Basketball fans also know KU and Syracuse play deadly defense, too, but offense sells and the more viewers who tune in, the more CBS can charge for its stockpile of commercials.

Did you know that if both Kansas and Syracuse surpass the 90-point plateau tonight, it will be the first time two teams have crossed that threshold in the title game since the NCAA Tournament began in 1939?

Kentucky and Duke came close in 1978 when the Wildcats edged the Blue Devils, 94-88. Moreover, only one team — Nevada-Las Vegas in 1990 — has ever breached the 100-point barrier in the championship game.

Unless I’m mistaken, tonight’s clash won’t be as stodgy as last year when Maryland molassesed Indiana, 64-52, in the Georgia Dome. I think both Syracuse’s Jim Boeheim and KU’s Roy Williams will adopt the strategy of attempting to outscore each other instead of using junk defenses and killing the clock as offensive disruptions.

Those are tactics coaches use when they’re playing teams with better personnel. Kansas and Syracuse are both talent-laden. Kansas has three players who can score and Syracuse has four. KU has two terrific seniors in Nick Collison and Kirk Hinrich and Syracuse has two whoopee freshmen in Carmelo Anthony and Gerry McNamara.

This should be the kind of game where they just line up and shoot. May the team with the most direct hits win. We’ll play our game, you play yours and winner takes all. No prisoners, no questions asked

On a lesser scale, Anthony could be the game’s most intriguing subplot. At 6-foot-8, he is five inches taller than KU’s best defender, and if you don’t know who that is you’ve been searching for piranha teeth in the Amazon jungle for the last four years.

Kirk Hinrich might not shadow Anthony for the entire 40 minutes — surely 6-5 Keith Langford will have the assignment, too — but Williams knows he has to put his best defender on the foe’s best offensive player the majority of the time or he is not giving his players their best opportunity to win.

Hinrich, Williams said Sunday, “has no holes in his defensive game. He can slide his feet. He has the length to bother the jump shots, and he can get around screens.”

Unfortunately, Hinrich stands only 6-3 and, Williams remarked, “I wish he were about three inches taller because I’d feel a heck of a lot better with my chances with Carmelo if he (Hinrich) were taller.”

Only two freshmen have really burned the Jayhawks this season, and those searings occurred during a three-day stretch in New York City. In the Preseason NIT, North Carolina’s Rashad McCants poured in 25 points and then Florida’s Matt Walsh dropped in 22.

Since then, the Jayhawks have virtually squashed the best freshmen they’ve faced. Texas A&M’s Antoine Wright, the Big 12 Conference freshman of the year, was 2-for-11 from the field against KU. Oklahoma’s Kevin Bookout and Texas’ Brad Buckman scored four points apiece in their lone games against the Jayhawks.

Arizona State’s Ike Diogu, the Pac-10 freshman of the year, was held to 13 points in Oklahoma City and Duke’s J.J. Redick, the ACC freshman of the year, made only 2-of-16 shots against the Jayhawks last weekend in Anaheim, Calif.

Hinrich, you may recall, was slowed by an aching back while the Jayhawks were in Madison Square Garden, yet Williams describes that potential factor in the outbursts of McCants and Walsh as mere coincidence.

“We can say Kirk’s back was bothering him and that Wayne Simien’s ankle was really bothering him and that’s the reason we got our butts beat,” Williams said of the Big Apple experience. “Bottom line, that’s making excuses.”

Bottom Line II: There will be no excuses tonight, either.