Not fair to rank this Villanova team as the best when there were 78 other NCAA championships

Not fair to rank this Villanova team as the best when there were 78 other NCAA championships, and so kudos to Nova on yet another splendid season with an excellent coach in Jay Wright And Philadelphia can now cheer on two champions, the Wildcats and the NFL Super Bowl winning Eagles

By Arnie Leshin 

Kudos to Villanova. Hurray for Philadelphia as it could now celebrate the Wildcats following on the heels of the Eagles.

Not bad for the City of Brotherly Love, the one that booed Santa Claus at an Eagles’ game on Christmas day, the one with fanatic football fans that had waited so long to finally embrace Super Bowl champion.

Not so with Nova, for the school in the suburbs didn’t wait long at all, rolling over Michigan, 79-62, only two years after winning it all over North Carolina on a buzzer basket.

And its first national title was back in 1985 when, after losing to top-ranked Georgetown three times, shocked college hoops by winning 66-64 over the stunned Hoyas, who were known to be celebrating before the game even began.

So now there’s a new men’s champion, one that won all six tournament games in double figures, one that set a tournament record by tossing in 18 3s in the 20-point semifinals win over Kansas, which was also a No. 1 seed.

Another stellar team coached by Jay Wright. One that had a different hero for each contest, this time it was 6-4 sophomore guard Donte DiVincenzo. He totaled the game-high 30 points on 10-for-15 marksmanship that included a 5-for-7 night from the 3-point line, seven rebounds, three steals, and the one he enjoyed most, blocking five shots.

But with this being the 78th NCAA Division I tournament, it’s not fair to qualify Villanova as the best of all. I wonder how far back these knowledgeable fans of the sport go. I mean, it began in 1938 with Oregon State defeating Ohio State, 46-34, and we’ll never just how good the Beavers were because there’s no way old timers in the 80s and 90s can tell us.

I got interested in the national championships in 1961 when Oscar Robinson led Cincinnati to back-to-back titles over California and Ohio State. This was a quality team and Robinson was its All-America.

And you can’t tell me that the UCLA teams that won nine straight from 1964-1973 weren’t the best in the land and so good that none of their games were really close, even in the national finals. There were stars on each of these teams, including Lew Alcindor, the best college player of all time.

The Bruins’ run was abruptly stopped by the Texas Western team that defied color, for 10 of their 14 players were black. They also turned back a solid Kentucky team that featured Pat Riley and Lou Dampier.

Indiana, coached by Bob Knight, is the only undefeated team to win the championship. It had one of the best lineups from top to bottom, for everyone played and everyone contributed to this elite group.

Kentucky in 1978 was awesome. So was the Duke team that featured Bob Hurley, Grant Hill and Christian Laettner. The Dukies won two in a row by winning over Kansas and Michigan in 1991 and ’92. In the ’91 quarterfinals, down by one against Kentucky, it was Hill who fired the ball down court and Laettner turned and threw it in at the final buzzer.

North Carolina had real good lineups, but it might have had its best in the championship year of 1982, and when it faced Kansas and Wilt Chamberlain in the 1957 final, it took three overtimes for the Tar Heels to edge the Wildcats by a point, and as good as NC was, Chamberlain was the MVP.

Florida won in 2006 and returned its entire starting lineup to win again the next season. It was a squad with talent, one of the better ones.

There was the CCNY team of 1950. It had an all-star lineup and defeated Bradley in the National Invitational Tournament and in the NCAA tourney.

But the scandal back than spoiled any recognition it desired. In fact all the schools involved in the gambling, the throwing of games, were real good, and that included Long Island University, New York University, Manhattan College and St. John’s. But when you’re caught throwing games and getting paid for it, it was costly for these elite players.

There were more, because to win it all you need to be good on that night, as Villanova in ’85, Loyola of Chicago in ’63, and Marquette in ’77 were.

So Nova deserved this one, as it did in 2016, but it’s best to label it as one of many, many championship teams before it. To be fair, there were just too many other schools that rank real high.