New Orleans – The men’s NCAAM Final Four is taking place this weekend in New Orleans at the Caesars Superdome and if you thought fans wouldn’t be able to fill the stadium you would have been wrong.
It was a very packed house to see Kansas vs. Villanova and Duke vs. North Carolina.
First game of the night featured Kansas and Villanova which was a rematch of the 2018 Final Four that saw Nova come out on top and win their 3rd championship in school history. Tonight was a different night.
In a regular game when both teams are fully healthy it would have been tough for Villanova to keep up with this Kansas offense. Take out one of their best players in Justin Moore and that made the matchup that much harder. Kansas was firing on all cylinders from the tip and Nova just couldn’t handle it.
Led by Big 12 Player of the Year Ochai Agbaji’s hot 3 point shooting and big man David McCormack’s dominant paint performance, Kansas was simply just too much.
It was an uncharacteristically bad night for the Nova defense who didn’t play with the same physicality as they normally do. At least not consistently. They didn’t have a rough start offensively but even when their offense picked up they couldn’t get enough stops to really get back in the game. Also have to give credit to Kansas because even when they started to settle and let Nova get back in the game they didn’t let Nova get too comfortable and got their offense back clicking.
Nova did make a push with about 5-6 minutes left in the game to get the Kansas lead down to 6 but Kansas as they had all game reminded Nova that their offense was too potent and went on a quick 11-1 run to push their lead back up to 16 and ended up winning the game 81-65.
Kansas was led by Ochai Agbaji who had 21 points on 6-8 shooting and David McCormack who had 25 points and 9 rebounds. Christian Braun had a solid night with 10 points and 5 assists while Jalen Wilson also had a solid night with 9 points, 11 rebounds, and 5 assists.
The Jayhawks will take on the winner of Duke and North Carolina for a chance to win a National Championship.
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