NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA - APRIL 02: Paolo Banchero #5 of the Duke Blue Devils drives against Brady Manek #45 of the North Carolina Tar Heels in the second half of the game during the 2022 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament Final Four semifinal at Caesar NEW ORLEANS (AP) - The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill will join Kansas for the NCAA Championship game after defeating its biggest rival Duke in the Final Four Saturday night.Kansas and Villanova waged a memorable 3-point shooting contest at the Final Four, one of them racing out to a big lead in the opening minutes and the other spending the rest of the night trying in vain to catch up.Probably sounds a little familiar.But in a rematch of a rout by the Wildcats four years ago in San Antonio, it was the Jayhawks joyously walking off the court at the final buzzer Saturday night.
David McCormack muscled his way for 25 points, Ochai Agbaji was nearly perfect from the field and finished with 21, and the lone No.
1 seed to reach the national semifinals rolled to an 81-65 victory.RELATED: NCAA: UConn, South Carolina women meet for title game"This is what we were planning to do that season," said Agbaji, who was 6 of 7 from beyond the arc in Saturday night's shootout. "Everyone that was on that team, this is for them and they know it just as much as us."Now, the Jayhawks (33-6) hope to follow a familiar pattern against Duke or North Carolina on Monday night.
The last three times the Jayhawks and Wildcats have met in the tournament, the winner has gone on to win it all."You come to Kansas for big games," said Christian Braun, who also had 10 points, "but you don't come to Kansas to play in the Elite Eight.