No. 1 seed Jayhawks roll over Wildcats

NEW ORLEANS » Ochai Agbaji followed a celebrating stream of Kansas players off the floor at the Final Four, their shouts of “One more!” echoing all the way up the tunnel of the Superdome and right to the door of their locker room.

One more game awaits, the biggest of their careers.

The Jayhawks earned a trip back to the national championship Saturday night with a shooting performance that will go down in history. David Mccormack muscled his way to 25 points, Ochai Agbaji hit six 3pointers and had 21, and the only No. 1 seed to reach the national semifinals rolled to an 81- 65 victory over Villanova before a huge crowd that packed the home of the New Orleans Saints one year after the pandemic kept just about everyone away.

“That’s everyone’s attitude — even after this game, even after last weekend, the weekend before that — everyone’s attitude was on to the next one,” Agbaji said, “and not looking too far ahead at what’s going on Monday.”

Well, they can look forward to a big- time showdown now: The Jayhawks, the winningest program in Division I history, will face North Carolina, which sits at No. 3 on the list and has been to more Final Fours than anyone.

The Jayhawks ( 33- 6) hope a familiar pattern holds, too: The last three times Kansas and Villanova have met in the tourney, the winner has gone on to cut down the nets, including their lopsided Final Four matchup four years ago in San Antonio.

“You come to Kansas for big games,” said Christian Braun, who had 10 points against the Wildcats, “but you don’t come to Kansas to play in the Elite Eight. You don’t come to Kansas to play in the Final Four. You come to play for a championship.”

Playing without injured guard Justin Moore, the Wildcats ( 30- 8) watched as Kansas scored the game’s first 10 points and eventually built a 19- point cushion Saturday night.

And despite big performances from Collin Gillespie, Brandon Slater and Jermaine Samuels, the short- handed and undersized Wildcats never made it all the way back.

Gillespie, playing in his 156th and final game for the Wildcats, hit five 3- pointers and finished with 17 points, while Slater hit four 3s and had 16 points. Samuels finished with 13 points in the final game of his career.

“They played great. They were well- prepared. They really executed,” Villanova coach Jay Wright said. “We did a lot of things wrong, but we want to make sure they get the credit they deserve. They played a great game.”

Each team finished with 13 made 3- pointers, and the 26 total shots from beyond the arc set a record for a Final Four game, topping the 25 that the same two teams made in 2018 at the Alamodome.

Unlike that night, though, it was the Jayhawks who pounced on Villanova at the start, trying to run ragged a team whose depth problems were only compounded by the loss of Moore, who tore his Achilles tendon in the regional finals.