Detroit — At the risk of seeming like an absolute moron (because, hey, when has that ever stopped me?), let me say that I still think Villanova is a pretty good basketball team. You would never have guessed it Friday night, but the Wildcats beat Clemson, Connecticut, Pittsburgh and West Virginia this season.

Then came Kansas. And as the whole Big 12 can tell you, when Kansas comes, sometimes the best option is to crawl under your bench and look around to make sure nobody got hurt. The Jayhawks let Villanova hang around for roughly five minutes - at press time, I did not have the Official Time of Death - before hitting the gas pedal.

At one point, Kansas led, 26-10. The Jayhawks let Villanova cut the margin to seven, presumably for tax purposes, before rolling to a 41-22 halftime lead.

By the end, the top-seeded Jayhawks were one victory away from their first Final Four under Bill Self. More importantly, they had saved sports writers from a dreaded Wildcats-Wildcats regional final between Villanova and Davidson.

With Kansas, though, what you remember is not so much the final score but the humiliation. The players seem to major in alley-oops - sometimes it seems like it doesn't matter who is passing and who is dunking, and it sure doesn't matter who is defending.

The Jayhawks won their first tournament game by 24, their second by 19 and their third, Friday, with ease. Officially, the final was 72-57.

About the worst thing you can say about these Jayhawks is that they are too good for their own good. Whenever they lose (which isn't often), it triggers the sort of postgame analysis that the heartland normally reserves for natural disasters. What happened? How? Should we have seen this coming?

Being so good can have negative repercussions. No matter how often coaches harp on the small details, the fact is that when a team is winning games before halftime, those details are going to be overlooked.

For example, in Friday's first half the Jayhawks committed nine turnovers. They led by 19, anyway, partly because they forced 10 turnovers. But the Jayhawks cannot keep giving the ball away so often and get away with it.

Only North Carolina and UCLA can match Kansas' overall talent. But the Jayhawks have been loaded in almost every one of Self's five years. That has never translated to a Final Four berth, because too often in the past, the talent didn't mesh.

This year's team is different. The past NCAA humiliations surely have something to do with it. There is finally a focus to match the talent.

And as great as Davidson has been, you have to like Kansas' chances today. Davidson has the best player in this tournament, Stephen Curry, but Kansas can put four potential first-round picks on the floor at once.

At some point today, the Jayhawks are going to go on a big run. The question will be whether Kansas can sustain it, or if Curry and his underrated teammates will hang around long enough to pull off the upset.

I think Davidson can make a game of it. But a lot of people thought that about Villanova, too, and by the end of Friday night, Ford Field was almost empty. Kansas takes the life out of the opponent and the arena. It's what great teams do.