Forget the Lack of 1-and-Dones; Villanova and UNC Are Both Full of Greatness
HOUSTON โ The college basketball population hit the snooze button on Saturday's blowout semifinals in anticipation that a North Carolina Tar Heels-Villanova Wildcats final would give us some form of entertainment.
And in a lot of ways, some people have written off this season as a parity-filled down year in college hoops and are waiting for 2016-17, when another one-and-done infestation will likely give us lottery picks to watch in April.
Time to get out the eraser.
Monday's title game features two teams that have captured greatness through five games in the NCAA tournament to the point that their domination is historic.
Both have won with veterans, high-octane offenses and two of the best coaches in the game developing the players into beasts.
Yes, sometimes it takes a little time to become elite.
Roy Williams went hard after local product Brandon Ingram on the recruiting trail, and had he been successful, UNC's offense may have looked a lot different.
But is it possible that missing out on Ingram and other similar talents was a blessing?
"It just goes to show we don't need one of those to be able to get to the point we are now," sophomore point guard Joel Berry II said. "To me, personally, it means more to know we have guys who actually care about the team and care about what we want to do later down the road compared to me just coming in and doing what I have to do this year and whatever happens, happens. I know I'm leaving.
"I would rather have a person coming in that cares about the team, what we do as a whole and not just individual stats."
Williams has never had a Final Four team that was built around a freshman, and Ingram's talent may have led the coach in that direction.
But Williams is one of the best in the college game at cultivating an offense in the Carolina imageโfast-paced and balancedโwith a core that has time to grow together.
Recruiting the pieces that fit are important to that mission.
"If they aren't our type of kids, he's not going to go after them," assistant coach C.B. McGrath said. "Coach is only going to go after the types of guys he wants to coach. I guess the media just thinks you're supposed to have a roster full of one-and-done[s] because Kentucky did it one time. It's a hard thing to do.
"Roy got here by doing it his way."
With this group, Williams has allowed some guys to go through growing pains and slumps. He heard suggestions that he should bench Berry to put Marcus Paige back at point guard, and some criticized him for sticking with center Kennedy Meeks during a late-season slump.
The end product has made those moves look pretty smart.
North Carolina is blazing through the tournament with offensive numbers that are far better than in the current era. In fact, if efficiency numbers had always been kept in college basketball, these Heels would likely have a chance to put themselves at the top of the all-time list.
| 1. Florida (2007) | 124.0 |
| 2. Louisville (2013) | 120.8 |
| 3. North Carolina (2005) | 119.4 |
| 4. Duke (2010) | 118.2 |
| 5. Kentucky (2012) | 117.9 |
| North Carolina (2016, through 5 games) | 131.7 |
Ryan Arcidiacono was asked about his future plans Sunday afternoon, and the tone of the question made it obvious "the NBA" was not the answer that would be anticipated.
The Wildcats are absent from mock draft boards, and while it's conceivable that several guys on the roster could eventually make it in the league, it's also conceivable that not one gets drafted.
When posed with the scenario that no Nova players are ever selected in the NBA draft, an NBA scout told B/R that it was possible.
If Nova wins the title and that becomes a reality down the road, it would be the first time ever for a champ to not have one player eventually get drafted since the NBA had its first draft in 1947.
Yet somehow this roster is smacking folks by 24.2 points per game in this NCAA tournament.
"It's like what coach [Jay] Wright talked about yesterday after the game. We don't have eight Hall of Fame NBA basketball players in this locker room, but it would take eight Hall of Fame basketball players to win a Final Four game like we did," junior guard Josh Hart said. "I think some of the guys might be a little underrated or not as respected as they could be.
"I think a lot of guys, if they went someplace else, could be stars, but it just shows how bought-in they are to this system, to each other and not worried about individual stats and individual accolades."
It's hard to imagine that Nova wins Monday night in blowout fashion again. But let's say Villanova beats UNC by five points. The Wildcats' average margin of victory during this title run would still be 21 points.
Compared to the tourney performances of some of the teams considered the best in college history, Villanova fits right in if that's the measurement for judging how dominant a team was.
| UCLA (1968) | 21.3 |
| UCLA (1973) | 16.0 |
| Indiana (1976) | 13.2 |
| UNLV (1990) | 18.7 |
| Duke (1992) | 12.5 |
| Kentucky (1996) | 21.5 |
| Villanova (2016, through five games) | 24.2 |
Like the Heels, the Wildcats also were under fire at one point this year. They were criticized for jacking up way too many threes. Villanova had average three-point-shooting numbers yet ranked near the top of the country in percentage of shots coming from deep.
Much like at UNC, the end product has turned out to be pretty awesome. The Wildcats are also scoring 131.7 points per 100 possessionsโa tick below UNC if you stretch out the decimalsโand they rank second in adjusted efficiency for the season, per KenPom.com.
Wright has smartly built this roster with shooters and an anchor in the middle in Daniel Ochefu.
Villanova has shot 49 percent from deep during the tournament, and in the one game where it struggled from deepโ4-of-18 against Kansasโthe threat of outside shooting convinced KU coach Bill Self to have his players stay attached to shooters and let Ochefu operate one-on-one in the post.
Ochefu scored only 10 points in that game, but he did so efficiently (5-of-8) and had some back-breaking buckets. It was easy for him to work, too: In several instances, he got the ball and dribbled multiple times without a second defender even entering his area, giving him time to set up a move.
"I love the way they're shooting," Ochefu said. "It's easy for me to just get dunks and layups."
The Nova defense is also performing at a championship level and has turned into a star killer. The Wildcats held Oklahoma's Buddy Hield to nine points one week after limiting KU leading scorer Perry Ellis to just four points.
What's so impressive about the Wildcats is how connected they are on both ends. There's a trust that every guy on the floor is going to be where he's supposed to be, and it allows each player to do his job.
That takes time to build. There's definitely talent in place, but the Nova players all say that it has to be the right kind of guy to fit the culture.
"I just think to be able to play in this program, to even learn how to play Villanova basketball, it's going to take you more than one year to play," Arcidiacono said. "โฆ I think to be a part of this program, it takes a few years, a year or so, to get to know how to play hard and deal with all the little things, focus on everyone else instead of yourself."
We quickly forget that how Kentucky and Duke were built in their title years is not the norm. The only national champs that have been led by freshmen were Syracuse in 2003, Kentucky in 2012 and Duke in 2015.
Most champions are built over years.
These teams don't just get better year to year; they get better over the course of the season.
That's the lesson to take from this tournament: Let the thing play out.
Before the tournament, I wrote about the lack of elite teams in college basketball this year. I used Ken Pomeroy's Pythagorean rating to compare teams from season to season.
The No. 1 team at that time, Virginia, had a lower rating than any No. 1 in his database, which dates back to 2002.
Pomeroy predicted that whoever ultimately ended up the No. 1 team would have a higher rating by the end.
"I would guess it would rise just because one of those top four or five teams is probably going to play better than they have been, which will cause it to rise a little bit," he said.
Nostradamus Pomeroy.
If you run those same numbers now, Pomeroy was right. The two top teams in his rankingsโVillanova and UNC, respectivelyโhave numbers closer to the norm at the top.
"I think you're seeing a season where there weren't dominant players, there weren't dominant teams," Wright said. "Then you're seeing a season where two teams just continued to get better and better and better and better. Now at the end, that's what you're seeing.
"The teams that continued to improve throughout the year are playing the best right now."
On Monday night, we will see two teams that have become great.
Let's hope they can wipe Saturday night from our memory banks and deliver, like they have already, for one more night.
C.J. Moore covers college basketball for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter, @CJMooreBR.
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