Hot start proves decisive
NEW ORLEANS — Kansas and Villanova waged a three-point shooting contest at the Final Four with one of them racing out to a big lead in the opening minutes and the other spending the rest of the night trying in vain to catch up.
It all might sound familiar to basketball fans.
But in a rematch of a rout by the Wildcats four years ago in San Antonio, the Jayhawks (33-6) joyously walked off the court with the victory this time Saturday night. David McCormack muscled his way for 25 points, Ochai Agbaji was nearly perfect from the field and finished with 21, and the lone No. 1 seed to reach the national semifinals rolled to an 81-65 victory.
“This is what we were planning to do that season,” said Agbaji, who was 6-for-7 from beyond the arc. “Everyone that was on that team, this is for them and they know it just as much as us.”
Playing without injured guard Justin Moore, Villanova (31-7) watched as Kansas scored the game’s first 10 points and eventually built a 19-point cushion. And despite big nights from Collin Gillespie, Brandon Slater and Jermaine Samuels, the short-handed and undersized Wildcats never made it all the way back.
“We got off to such a great start in large part because of how we shot the ball,” Kansas coach Bill Self said.
Gillespie, playing in his 156th and final game for the Wildcats, hit five threes and finished with 17 points, while Slater hit four threes and had 16 points. Samuels finished with 13 points in his final game.
Each team finished with 13 threepointers, and the 26 made shots from beyond the arc set a record for a Final Four game, topping the 25 that the same teams made in 2018 at the Alamodome. Unlike that night, though, the Jayhawks pounced on Villanova at the start, trying to run ragged a team whose depth problems were compounded by the loss of Moore, who tore his Achilles tendon in the regional finals.
The Jayhawks applied pressure the moment Villanova inbounded the ball. They unleashed traps in half-court, something they rarely did in the regular season. They twice picked the pocket of Gillespie, leading to easy baskets and a 10-0 lead before some of the 70,000-plus fans had even found their seats.