For the second time in three years, the Villanova Wildcats are national champions in men’s basketball. Jay Wright, eternally rumored as a potential NBA head coach, has developed a brilliant recruiting pipeline — two of the program’s top 2015 recruits, Jalen Brunson and Donte DiVicenzo, helped win the title in 2016 and played major roles in Villaova’s dominance this year. Mikal Bridges, a 2014 recruit who redshirted a year, has developed into a potential lottery pick with two rings. Brunson is the only McDonald’s All-American on the roster. It’s pretty wild.
Villanova and Notre Dame are national champs. We see you, Pope Francis.
We have that and more in Tuesday’s NBA newsletter.
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Mike Rutherford shares how Villanova navigated the near-death of the Big East to excel. Ricky O’Donnell explains that Villanova spoke its bond into existence by sheer will. Michigan, who was on the losing end, has lost two national title games now largely due to reserve players blowing up. Word to Luke Hancock. And here’s what you came for: this year’s “One Shining Moment” video.
There were no NBA games on Monday. To make up for that, there are 13 games on Tuesday! This includes a Raptors-Cavaliers grudge match (7 p.m. ET, League Pass), potential first-round preview Celtics-Bucks (8 ET, League Pass), potential first-, second-, or third-round preview Warriors-Thunder (8 ET, TNT), high-potential heartstopper Pacers-Nuggets (9 ET, League Pass), and critical-for-everyone Spurs-Clippers (10:30 ET, TNT). Whew. Big night.
Here’s your extremely early 2018-19 top 25 in men’s college basketball. Dang, Duke is going to be stacked.
This dude Gordon Hayward is really going to keep teasing us with his rehab, isn’t he?
This Q&A with Grant Hill is great, but I’m most interested in his comments on painkillers and opioid overprescription. It seems like this issue is starting to wane, having done its immense damage already. It’s still scary at an individual level, though.
It was overshadowed by ARIKE OGUNBOWALE, but the Nuggets keeping their playoff hopes alive by helping the Bucks absolutely implode on Sunday was something incredible.
The Hornets reportedly offered their front office job to Mitch Kupchak. This is a really good hire if it comes to fruition. But the Hornets are in salary cap hell, so the prognosis is pretty bleak altogether.
John Wall is back. What’s that mean for the Wizards? Also, here’s a collection of things the Wizards have found “unacceptable” this season.
Shout out to the Clippers for renovating 350 public courts in LA.
You can’t replace Joel Embiid, but Amir Johnson is at least covering for him well on the defensive end.
Don’t look now but Buddy Hield has been on a tear.
Be excellent to each other.
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