City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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All season long, there’s been this underlying sense that as good as Villanova was, it wasn’t a legitimate national title contender.

That was left for the “blue-blood” programs--the Kentuckys, the Dukes, the North Carolinas. The teams with multiple McDonald’s All-Americans and potential top-10 draft picks, not a ‘Nova squad that had just one All-American and no projected first-round draftees.

It’s a feeling that’s hung around the new Big East--a high-major conference, but not quite as stacked with talent as the ACC, the Big 12, the SEC, the Big Ten. And it was a feeling that seemed somewhat validated when Villanova started off 7-0 but then lost to two of those high-major powerhouses, Virginia and Oklahoma, by a combined 34 points in the span of 12 days in December.

So even as the Wildcats then stormed through the Big East for the third consecutive season, piling up 27 regular-season wins and even claiming the No. 1 ranking in the AP poll for a few weeks, they were always treated as a temporary holder of the title, a group whose flaws would be exposed sooner or later in the NCAA Tournament.

After all, Villanova couldn’t even win the Big East championship, losing to Seton Hall in the title game at Madison Square Garden. How were they going to win a national championship?

Ryan Arcidiacono, the team’s captain and all-around leader, was a terrific college guard but he was no Marcus Paige, no Buddy Hield. Having just one proven big man (Daniel Ochefu) would be a downfall against teams like Kansas and Kentucky, who were not just talented and athletic but built more similarly to NBA teams than ones in college ball.

We’re talking about a team, might I remind you, that starts a 6-foot-6 sharpshooter at the ‘4’ spot--and no offense to Kris Jenkins, but he’s not the most athletic forward in the country.

We’re talking about a team with three point guards in the top eight, with a starting center dealing with an ankle problem, a program that hadn’t made it out of the first weekend of the NCAAs since 2009.

And now we’re talking about a team that is one victory away from winning it all, for just the second time in program history. That 1985 group is almost mythological to a group of young student athletes who were several years from being born, and now they have a chance to equal their predecessors.

There’s no denying now that Jay Wright has a special group, one that is clearly more than the sum of its parts. Every member of the Wildcats’ eight-man rotation has been contributing during a five-game NCAA Tournament run that can certainly be described as dominant, perhaps historical.

After all, no team has ever won a Final Four game by more than 36 points, until Villanova blasted Oklahoma by 44 on Saturday night.

It starts with Arcidiacono--who’s averaging 15.8 ppg and 3.2 apg in the NCAA Tournament while providing the emotional backbone for the Wildcats--plus Jenkins (15.8 ppg) and another junior, Josh Hart (15.6 ppg).

And it continues onto the bench, where 6-7 redshirt freshman and Great Valley native Mikal Bridges (7.8 ppg during NCAAs) has emerged as potentially the best long-term prospect in the program, where Phil Booth has been knocking down shots and Darryl Reynolds has been grabbing boards and playing D.

None of them were five-star prospects or All-Americans, yet here they are.

So now, on Monday night, the college basketball season will come to an end with Villanova on the court. The opponents are one of those premier programs, North Carolina, the preseason No. 1 team in the country. The Tar Heels, with their six McDonald’s All-Americans on the roster--and that doesn’t even include Brice Johnson, the 6-10 forward who’s averaging 17.0 ppg and 10.5 rpg.

This is the same North Carolina program that’s been to more Final Fours (19) than any other in Division I history, led by a coach (Roy Williams) who’s in his eighth Final Four and gunning for his third national championship.

But no longer does Villanova feel like any sort of underdog. They destroyed Miami (Fl.) by 33 in the Sweet 16, solved Kansas in the Elite 8, dismantled Oklahoma in the Final Four. They’ve proven themselves against the ACC, the Big Ten and the Big 12 in the last four games, including a 19-point win over Iowa in the second round.

If the Wildcats can close it out at NRG Stadium on Monday night, they’ll complete one of the more dominant runs in NCAA Tournament history to take home the program’s second-ever national title.

And maybe they’ll become one of those blue-blood programs themselves.

They’ve already come this far.