A year ago, Kansas crashed out of the Big Dance in its first weekend in embarrassing fashion, an 85–51 defeat against USC. Afterwards, Bill Self proclaimed his team needed to get more athletic, longer and bigger in order to contend for a national championship. And perhaps the most obvious matchup weakness in that game for the Jayhawks was center David McCormack, who was matched up with future No. 3 pick Evan Mobley and tallied just five points on 2-of-4 shooting.
“Coach felt that was a game of aggression, a game of bullying, of how bad you really wanted it,” McCormack said Friday. “We knew going into this tournament that we don’t want to have that same feeling and have coach say those same things so that’s why we had to be the aggressor, be dominant and that’s why I think we were more defensive this year.”
Kansas did make some additions via the transfer portal, but all five starters in Saturday’s game were on the floor for that drubbing a season ago. They looked plenty athletic enough against Villanova to win a national title, and there’s no question who the primary aggressor was today: McCormack. The Jayhawks went to their big man early and often and were rewarded, as McCormack scored nine points in the first 10 minutes as KU asserted itself early.
