The Villanova Wildcats defeated the Michigan Wolverines 79-62 on Monday night at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas to win the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament.
As the top seed in the East Regional, the Wildcats defeated Radford (87-61), Alabama (81-58), West Virginia (90-78), Texas Tech (71-59) and Kansas (95-79) to reach the championship game.
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The win marks the program’s second national championship in three years and the third in school history (1985, 2016 and 2018).
Villanova’s win put the team in the history book in several ways. The Wildcats are the first team to be the highest-scoring Division I college basketball team in the country and win the national championship since the 2005 North Carolina team as well as the first team to win every tournament game by a double-digit margin since the 2009 North Carolina team.
The team also made history outside of college basketball. Thanks to the Philadelphia Eagles winning Super Bowl LII in February, Philadelphia became the first city in the nation to win a Super Bowl Championship and the Men’s College Basketball National Championship in the same year.
The third-seeded Wolverines appeared to have the advantage early on, leading by as many as five points twice during the first 10 minutes, but by halftime the top-seeded Wildcats had regained control leading 37-28. Villanova continued to pull away in the second half, leading by as many as 22 points.
The team shot 47.4 percent from the field, but dominated behind the arc shooting 10 of 27 compared to Michigan meager 3 of 23.
Sophomore guard Donte DiVincenzo came off the bench light up the scoreboard with 31 points, shooting 5-for-7 for three’s along with five rebounds, three assists and two blocks.
Villanova head coach Jay Wright continued to grow his impressive list of accomplishments in his 16-year tenure with the program. His resume includes three Final Four appearances, five Big East regular season titles, three Big East Tournament titles, two Naismith College Coach of the Year awards and the John R. Wooden Legends of Coaching Award.
“Jalen Brunson, Phil Booth and Mikal Bridges are our leaders. When we got down, those three kept everybody together,” Wright said in his postgame interview as the championship trophy was presented. “It’s great to have three leaders like that.”
When asked if he could wrap his mind around making it to the top of the mountain twice, he said he simply couldn’t.
“I never dreamt of this,” Wright said. “I thought we played our best game in a championship game.”
Photo: Tom Pennington/Getty Images
