Villanova is college basketball’s best program
SAN ANTONIO — All night long, Houston's Jamal Shead had stuck to Villanova point guard Collin Gillespie like an insect that was too fast to kill and too persistent to shoo away. Shead was everywhere Gillespie went, erasing his air space and determined to make the Wildcats' most important player a nonfactor in the Elite Eight.
“You try as hard as you can to stop him from what he's good at,” Shead said.
For 35 minutes, it worked to perfection. Gillespie had scored two points from the free-throw line, but he hadn't made a shot. Houston had climbed back within two points with five minutes remaining, and the heavily pro-Cougars crowd at AT&T Center was roaring to life. Villanova coach Jay Wright called timeout and, of course, put the ball in Gillespie's hands. All through this miserable slog of a regional final, Gillespie never pouted, never pressed, never tried to make something out of nothing. He didn't take a single bad shot. When the play wasn't there, he passed the ball and moved on.
But somehow, coming out of that huddle with five minutes left, Gillespie found himself guarded by someone besides Shead. With one dribble to his right, he created more space than he had all night and let a 17-foot jumper go. In an NCAA Tournament game, some baskets are bigger than others. When Gillespie's swished through the net, it felt as enormous as any two points Villanova scored this year.
“I hope part of our culture is humility,” Villanova coach Jay Wright said. “He didn't have to prove he could make the big shots, and he could get shots for his teammates and that comes with humility. If you feel like you have to show what you can do, maybe you don't make good decisions, and we try to teach
them how to be intelligent players, but the humility's got to come first.”
Culture is probably the most used — and overused — buzzword in college sports these days. Every program has its own idea of what it means. The mediocre ones like to tweet about it. The good ones live it. And the best win championships because of it.
No matter what happens next week in New Orleans, Saturday's 50-44 win over Houston was another building block in the case for Villanova as college basketball's best program. In a de facto road game that was physical and nasty and presented Villanova with every opportunity to fall apart, the Wildcats' culture pulled them through.
This is not a Villanova team with elite shooters like it had in 2016 when Wright broke through for his first title. It's unlikely this group will have four legitimate NBA players like his second title
team in 2018. But what it does have is the residue of what it took to make those runs happen and the buy-in from a group of players who understood the challenge of beating Houston, accepted how hard it was going to be and did not break character at any point in the ugliest game any of them will ever play. From one generation to the next, Villanova has built a program that doesn't just win these kind of games; it hands down the will to embrace them.
“It's crazy how things are coming full-circle,” said Jermaine Samuels, who was a minor player on the 2018 team. “I'm just extremely appreciative. Back then it was amazing to watch those guys from the sidelines. It was like I had a front-row ticket to some of the greatest Villanova players to put on the jersey, and you try to emulate them and be them and put the work in like they did and pray it works out for you.”
It's working out for this team in a pretty remarkable way. In mid-December, Wright took a road game at Baylor right before the Big East opener at Creighton. Villanova lost them by a combined 41 points, and he worried that he had given this group a more difficult schedule than it could handle, especially considering how much of an event it is for the Wildcats to go on the road in every Big East game.
But as Wright reflected on the journey to a fourth Final Four appearance since he's been at Villanova, it was probably the best preparation he could have given his team for playing in an environment like it faced Saturday, with Houston fans filling an arena a couple of hours away from its campus.
“I think our guys get used to that and being able to control what we can control,” Wright said. “We just can't get caught up in emotion. We have to stick together, and the guys did a great job of that.”
If Villanova wins two more games, it will be Wright's third national championship in seven years, a résumé that would put him on equal footing with Roy Williams, Jim Calhoun and Bobby Knight. But what makes a program truly great isn't just titles; it's the ability to stay in the mix even in years when the teams have significant flaws.
That's what differentiates this Villanova run: It has taken far more than talent to get to this Final Four. And in the ultimate test of character and toughness Saturday against Houston, Villanova's culture won out.
“That's what we pride ourselves on, just stay into each other and say ‘next play' no matter what's happening,” Gillespie said. “(The previous Villanova teams) are a big part of the reason we are the way we are today. We learned a ton from those guys, and now we play for those guys.
“They taught us how to play Villanova basketball and what it means to play in a Villanova jersey. It definitely did come full-circle.”