Both blood pressure and tension were high as the last few seconds of the NCAA Tournament Finals were played. Wildcat senior Ryan Arcidiacono ran the ball down the court, passing it to junior Kris Jenkins with one second remaining on the clock. The ball soared out of Jenkins’ hands and straight through the net as the buzzer sounded and hearts of UNC-Chapel Hill players and fans dropped — the Villanova Wildcats won their second-ever NCAA Tournament.
I’ve been a Villanova fan for about seven years, and other than its Final Four appearance in 2009, not much could be said about the team’s success in the NCAA Tournament since then. After multiple first- and second-round losses, the team’s performance started to speak for itself, and I had difficulty convincing people the team was one worth cheering for — until now.
The Wildcats proved this season they are more than the team that gets knocked out in the Round of 32 of the NCAA Tournament. After losing to the Wolfpack in the second round of the 2015 tournament, 71-68, and the prior year to Connecticut, 77-65, Villanova has the reputation for getting knocked out early.
“We failed here in this NCAA Tournament, and we just got to accept it, and we’ve got to own it and live with it,” head coach Jay Wright told The Associated Press after the loss to NC State. “But it won’t define us.”
But it did define them. Villanova hadn’t made it past the Round of 32 since 2009, the year the team made it to the Final Four. And people noticed, which is why when it came time to fill out March Madness brackets, more people had Villanova losing in the first round of the tournament than winning the whole thing.
However, the No. 2 Wildcats took the tournament by storm, beating No. 7 seed Iowa in the second round, No. 3 seed Miami in the Sweet 16, No. 1 seed Kansas in the Elite Eight, No. 2 seed Oklahoma in the Final Four and No. 1 seed UNC-Chapel Hill in the championship.
In their Final Four matchup against Oklahoma, the Wildcats clawed their way to success, defeating the Sooners with the largest margin of victory a Final Four has ever seen, 95-51. The top-scorers of the night were junior guard Josh Hart with 23 points, Jenkins with 18 and Arcidiacono with 15, with four others reaching double figures.
Arcidiacono played 144 games in his Wildcat jersey, more than any other player in the history of Villanova basketball. He was made a team captain January of his freshman year and helped the team bounce back from its 13-19 season in 2011-12. Monday night against the Tar Heels marked his final game wearing his Wildcat uniform. Though he may not be Villanova’s top scorer, Arcidiacono’s leadership and quality decision making on the court carried the team deep into the tournament.
Wright, the 2016 Naismith Coach of the Year, said Arcidiacono thinks similarly to how Wright himself does. In a post-championship game interview, Wright said it was Arcidiacono’s decision in the final seconds to pass the ball to Jenkins, which resulted in the game-winning 3-pointer.
Arcidiacono’s and Jenkins’ performances, in addition to top performances from sophomore Phil Booth, who scored a career-high 20 points on the night, Hart, who had 12 points and senior Daniel Ochefu’s interior presence, helped the team come out on top, despite UNC senior Marcus Paige’s and sophomore Joel Berry II’s 21 and 20 points, respectively.
It’s safe to say most people did not expect the Wildcats to make it past the second round of the tournament, let alone leave Houston with a national championship win under their belts, but the team proved time and time again throughout the tournament that it deserved to be there.
Villanova defeated Oklahoma with the biggest margin of victory against any Final Four team at 44 points. Additionally, it had a 71.4 shooting percentage against the Sooners, second only to itself in the 1985 National Championship Game. And, it had the first buzzer-beating shot to win the national title since NC State in 1983.
So, like we have in the past, let the team’s performance in the tournament speak for itself and give the team the credit it deserves for one of the best overall performances in tournament history.
