Villanova was the perfect drama thief to end a thrilling NCAA tournament

There were two NCAA tournaments in 2018. There was the one that produced a historic 16-seed victory, made Jordan Poole a star with one of the least-likely buzzer-beaters in college basketball history, and turned a 98-year-old nun into one of the sport’s most popular personalities.

And then there was the one where Villanova beat the crap out of everyone.

The Wildcats left no drama in their six-game run to a second national title in three years. ‘Nova beat the tar out of its Big Dance opponents. Its closest games were 12-point victories over Texas Tech and West Virginia. Jay Wright’s team spent a total of 6:10 trailing in the second half at the NCAA tournament.

After a season in which the Wildcats finished second in the country with a 16.4-point margin of victory, they stormed through basketball’s biggest stage and won their games by an average 17.6-point lead. When the pressure got more intense, Villanova got even better.

Only two teams were more statistically dominant on their way to an NCAA title the past two seasons, and one of them was Villanova. The 2015-16 team beat opponents by a larger average margin of victory than this year’s squad, but at least those Wildcats knew when to dial up the drama. They only won a national title after Kris Jenkins’ buzzer-beating three drained through the net to erase North Carolina’s furious comeback.

Instead, this ‘Nova squad was more like another recent drama vampire: a 2008-09 UNC team that gave opponents no quarter in the postseason. Roy Williams’ team, led by senior Tyler Hansbrough, also won all its games by at least a dozen points. Like Monday’s game, their coronation was a 17-point pasting that was decided early in the second half. It even came against a Big Ten team from Michigan — although this time it was State’s Spartans and not the Wolverines.

The good news is the 2018 tournament was light years more entertaining than the one UNC left in its wake. That 2009 bracket had just one team seeded higher than fifth in the Sweet 16, and that was an Arizona team that knocked out an even better Cinderella — Cleveland State — to get there.

This year’s tournament gave the rest of the sporting world something else to latch on to. Maryland-Baltimore County closed out the first round by spanking Virginia and became the first No. 16 seed to ever win a game outside of the First Four in the process. As a result, the Retrievers’ became bracket-busting perfection, creating a South Regional where none of the last four teams remaining rated better than a five-seed in the selection committee’s eyes.

That created the fertile ground that sprouted a Cinderella in Loyola-Chicago, whose Final Four run made team chaplain Sister Jean Dolores Schmidt America’s most famous nonagenarian since Betty White. Elsewhere, you had Purdue’s quest to make Isaac Haas the tournament’s first bionic man after his elbow injury threatened its title hopes. There was Rhode Island ending Trae Young’s college career in what proved to be Dan Hurley’s last win with the Rams.

And there was Michigan, who smashed Houston’s Sweet 16 hopes into tiny bits with one of the craziest buzzer-beaters of all time.

In the end, Villanova’s dominance wiped all those stories clean, but it’s OK. This year proved there’s enough room for two tournaments, even if there’s only one bracket.