After dismissing Villanova, this is now a national title the Kansas Jayhawks should win | Opinion
NEW ORLEANS — There was too much conversation this week about the color of Villanova’s blood. There wasn’t enough about the temperature of Ochai Agbaji’s.
Turned out it was cold. Very, very cold.
And if Kansas ends up holding the trophy on Monday night, the first 20 seconds of its semifinal game will have been the omen. That’s when Agbaji, Kansas’ leading scorer who has not shot the ball particularly well in the NCAA Tournament, lifted off from the right side of the arc and launched a 3-pointer that barely moved the net. Then he did it again. And again. And again — all in the first nine minutes.
"I think we came out ready to play," Kansas coach Bill Self said in perhaps the biggest understatement of his career.
They were not particularly difficult looks for a shooter of Agbaji’s quality, but this wasn’t a Tuesday night at Allen Fieldhouse. This was the Final Four game against fellow blueblood Villanova in a 70,000-seat stadium, where excellent Kansas teams have suffered crushing losses in the last two national title games played here: in 2003 to Syracuse and 2012 to Kentucky.
But after Kansas 81, Villanova 65, this is looking like a very different animal. After a performance like the one the Jayhawks put on Saturday night, this isn’t a national championship they could win. It’s one they should win — especially against a North Carolina team that wasn't even ranked in the Ferris Mowers Coaches Poll when the tournament began.
Let’s be honest about one thing: Kansas has had about as friendly a road as possible to get here. When the draw came out on Selection Sunday, you wouldn’t have blamed Bill Self for popping a bottle of champagne when he saw that the Midwest Region included the tournament’s weakest No. 2 seed in Auburn, and an under-talented No. 3 seed in Wisconsin. And as it turned out, the Jayhawks never even had to face them.
Instead, they had the luxury of bouncing through Texas Southern, Creighton and Providence without even playing their A-game. In the Elite Eight against Miami, a No. 10 seed, Kansas looked disorganized for a half but still cruised by 26 by finally playing up to their potential in the second half.
And their reward for making the Final Four? A Villanova team that lost its second-leading scorer, Justin Moore, to an Achilles injury last weekend. All in all, it might be one of the easiest paths to a national championship game since the tournament expanded to 64 teams.
But who cares?
The narrative all along has been that this isn’t one of Self’s most talented Kansas teams. In this era of college basketball, though, you don't need a roster full of future pros to win a national championship. But you do probably need one — and Agbaji is very much it.
He’s a great story: A three-star shooting guard from Kansas City who came late onto the recruiting scene, chose Kansas when it probably would have made more sense to go somewhere with an easier path to playing time, then blossomed over four seasons into a Big 12 Player of the Year and 40 percent 3-point shooter.
Kansas’ luxury is that it did not need him to play at that level to get to the Final Four, as he came in making just 4-of-14 threes in the tournament. But once Agbaji started hitting shots immediately against Villanova — and they were pure as pure can be until he finally missed his seventh attempt with 2:04 remaining — there was little pretense of the Wildcats having a chance.
"In warm-ups and everything, having all the shootarounds, everything leading up to the game, just felt relaxed," Agbaji said. "Everyone on our team did, relaxed but still confident and ready to attack the game."
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And the confidence spread to all of Kansas’ shooters, who collectively buried 13-of-24 from long distance, including a pair late in the game from Christian Braun to slam the door on Villanova’s last surge.
"That's what good players do - they make plays," Self said. "When you're playing well, you want to extend the momentum. When you're not playing as well, you've got to cut the momentum off. And these guys made enough plays where they actually did that."
It was as visually impressive a performance as any team has put together in this tournament. It looked like a very good team peaking at the right time.
And it very much stamps the Jayhawks as the favorite to win Self’s second national championship on Monday night.