Six months later, NCAA title still sweet
Villanova glad it’s done answering questions about falling short
VILLANOVA, PA. Jay Wright and his Villanova men’s basketball team were well aware of the reputation that dogged them.
They knew they hadn’t advanced past the first weekend of the NCAA tournament since 2009. They knew they’d been labeled as an annual postseason disappointment and it’d become a bit of a knock on Wright’s coaching as well.
But they also knew none of that mattered within the Villanova program.
“We don’t define ourselves that way,” Wright told USA TODAY Sports. “We really don’t. It didn’t worry us, but it weighed on us, because it was just all we talked about, like whatever we did. I even felt bad sometimes. Whatever our guys did, you know — we were winning regular- season championships. I felt bad for our guys that no one gave us credit for it at all. They just kept saying, ‘ This doesn’t matter. It’s just whether they get to the second weekend.’ We spent all year talking to the guys about it because it was coming up.
“We would win a game and have a two- game lead in the Big East, and at the game people would say, ‘ OK, you’re two games up in the Big East right now. This really doesn’t matter, though. What do you think is going to happen when you get to the second round?’ We would sit in the press conference talking about that, so the next day as a team we would talk about it. We’d say, ‘ Guys, this does matter to us. Each day does matter. You’re not going to get this back.’ I was really pleased how they handled it.”
There were never more questions about surviving the NCAA tournament’s first weekend than leading into Villanova’s second- round game against Iowa in New York. The Wildcats, coming off a 30- point win against No. 15 seed North Carolina- Asheville, knew exactly what was at stake: their legacy. One of the most successful four- year groups in program history did not want to be known as the class that perennially underachieved and never even reached a Sweet 16.
“Going into that game against Iowa, the second- round game, I could feel the tension everywhere,” Wright said. “We were in New York, in Manhattan at the Ritz, with people that knew basketball working in the Ritz. I felt like they were stressed. The people working in the hotel were stressed; our fans were stressed; our administration was stressed. Everybody was so tight going into that game.
“I knew what was at stake. I looked at it as just my job. Either we’re going to win it and that’s going to be in the past; we’re going to have a new challenge now. Or we’re going to lose it, and I’ve got to deal with this.
“I really wasn’t worried about it, but the way our guys played showed that they were secure in themselves either way, because they played with tremendous confidence. No fear.”
After a resounding 19- point victory against Iowa, Villanova continued to cruise, riding one of the NCAA tournament’s most dominant runs into the national championship game against North Carolina. By the end of the title game — capped off by the jaw- dropping Kris Jenkins buzzer- beater that will live in tournament lore — the Wildcats had shot 62.8% on two- point shots, 50.0% on threes and 81.4% from the free throw line for the entire NCAA tournament. They outscored opponents by 20.7 points per game, including a 44- point beatdown of Oklahoma in the Final Four, one of the most lopsided games in national semifinal history.
Winning the national championship, certainly, was huge for Villanova, a program that had won one in its history before 2016. It also put Wright’s name alongside those of the great coaches of this generation.
“That was the only thing that was missing,” Jenkins said of his coach, who has accumulated a lifetime 476- 242 record, two Final Four appearances and four Big East championships.
And, more broadly, the title meant a great deal to Villanova’s conference, the new and refurbished Big East — a basketball- centric league without Football Bowl Subdivision football that is trying to prove it will continue to compete with and beat the big boys at the big dance.
“The dream was there,” Big East Commissioner Val Ackerman said. “The ( Big East) presidents dreamed it could happen, hoped it could happen and thought the pillars were in place. The fact that it happened so quickly was reaffirming. It was a quiet satisfaction. We were very happy for Villanova, in particular, because the monkey on their back had been how far they could go. I think they just proved every naysayer wrong.
“For the conference, it was a great moment and a great momentum- creator. I think it gives our schools a new incentive — to repeat. Now you get a little greedy and hope it happens again.”
Villanova, ranked No. 3 in the preseason USA TODAY Sports Coaches Poll and picked as the Big East favorite, will begin its title defense and open its 201617 regular season against Lafayette on Nov. 11.