Men’s Final Four 2022 – How the national championship matchup was set

NEW ORLEANS — The Kansas Jayhawks got the 2022 Final Four off to a smoking start on Saturday night, running out to a 10-0 lead and keeping the Villanova Wildcats at arm’s length the rest of the way in an 81-65 win at the Caesars Superdome. The victory puts KU in Monday night’s title game for the first time since 2012, with a chance to hoist the NCAA trophy for the first time since defeating Memphis for the 2008 championship.

The contest offered a prelude to Saturday’s much-anticipated second matchup between the Duke Blue Devils and North Carolina Tar Heels — the first NCAA tournament meeting between the Tobacco Road rivals, and the possible last act for Duke head coach and Hall of Famer Mike Krzyzewski on what will be the final weekend of his storied college basketball career.

ESPN’s team of Myron Medcalf, Jeff Borzello, John Gasaway and Joe Lunardi discussed what went right for Kansas on Saturday, what went wrong for Villanova and what the impact would be of a Kansas victory over an ACC school in the final on Monday night.

What was the key to Kansas’ win over Villanova?

Ochai Agbaji and David McCormack: the Jayhawks’ star, and their season-long (career-long?) X factor.

Agbaji snapped out of a brief slump in the second half of the Elite Eight win over Miami, and that momentum carried over on Saturday night. He came out of the gates gunning, hitting two 3s in the first three minutes and going 4-for-4 from deep in the opening eight-plus minutes. Collin Gillespie switching onto him slowed Agbaji down some toward the end of the first half, but two more backbreaking 3s to keep Villanova at an arm’s length in the second half were huge.

McCormack was always going to be the key against Villanova. The Wildcats simply didn’t have the size to handle him, so it came down to whether he could stay out of foul trouble, stay on the floor and be effective. And it didn’t take long for Kansas to make its intentions known. The Jayhawks were forcing the ball in the post to…