Kansas basketball: Jayhawks have shot at revenge in New Orleans

There is no shortage of storylines heading into this year’s Final Four in New Orleans.

The Duke Blue Devils are fighting for one more championship for Coach K’s final season. The North Carolina Tar Heels, as a No. 8 seed with first-year head coach Hubert Davis, have made a Cinderella-esque run. And the Villanova Wildcats are looking to win their third championship in six years under head coach Jay Wright.

Speaking of Villanova, one of the storylines for Bill Self and Kansas is their recent history with Wright and the Wildcats in the NCAA Tournament.

Villanova villains

Under Wright, Villanova has ended KU’s National Championship dreams twice in recent years.

In 2016, the Wildcats beat a 33-win, No. 1-seeded Kansas team in the Elite Eight that featured five future NBA players in Wayne Selden, Frank Mason, Devonte’ Graham, Sviatoslav Mykhailiuk, and Cheick Diallo.

The Jayhawks also had a senior that year by the name of Perry Ellis who earned First Team All-Big 12 honors for the second consecutive year, was voted a Second Team All-American, and finished the season as a Wooden Award finalist.

That Kansas team had talent, depth, and high aspirations. But thanks to a couple of questionable foul calls on Graham that caused him to foul out and the Wildcats limiting Ellis to just four points and five rebounds, the Jayhawks’ season was over.

In 2018, history repeated itself in the Final Four.

Villanova had a starting five who all ended up going to the NBA. Those five players shot lights out from the 3-point line, going 18-of-40 (45%) on the night to end the No. 1-seeded Jayhawks’ Final Four run fueled by the memorable postseason play of Malik Newman.

To have the same team end your season twice in three years is a tough pill to swallow. But this Kansas team has a chance to end that losing streak and strike some revenge on a coach and program that has caused a lot of heartbreak for the Jayhawks in this tournament.

Bad luck in the Big Easy

This year marks the fourth time that Kansas has reached the Final Four with New Orleans as the host site.

In 1993, the Jayhawks – coached by Roy Williams – fell to his mentor Dean Smith and North Carolina. The Tar Heels would go on to win the National Championship that year.

That was an experienced Jayhawks team that featured two stellar seniors who would go on to the NBA in Adonis Jordan and Rex Walters. The entire starting five averaged double-digit scoring that year and they had a 7-foot-2 future pro in Greg Ostertag coming off the bench.

In 2003, the Williams-led Jayhawks fell in a heartbreaker to Jim Boeheim’s Syracuse Orange. The Jayhawks went 12-of-30 from the free throw line and Gerry McNamara had the game of his life shooting 6-of-10 from 3-point range.

That Jayhawks team featured two beloved Kansas legends in seniors Kirk Hinrich and Nick Collison, along with a trio of stellar sophomores in Aaron Miles, Keith Langford, and Wayne Simien. To make matters worse, that game would also end up being the last for Roy Williams as he accepted the North Carolina job later that month.

In 2012, the Jayhawks made a surprising run to the National Championship game with a team that wasn’t expected to be there.

The Jayhawks were a two seed that year and had the Big 12 Player of the Year and a First Team All-American in junior Thomas Robinson, but they weren’t as deep or talented as past Kansas teams.

Still, they made an incredible run to the championship where they faced a near-unbeatable Kentucky Wildcats team led by Anthony Davis. The Jayhawks fought hard but there was just too much talent on the other side and the Jayhawks fell 67-59.

The Jayhawks have a chance to turn their fortune around in the Big Easy and avenge those three disappointing finishes by cutting down the nets on Monday night, and beating Villanova along the way would only make it that much sweeter.