By PAUL GOTHAM
BUFFALO, N.Y. — One year later the narrative has changed. The effect hasn’t.
Jay Wright and his Villanova Wildcats enter the 2017 NCAA Tournament as the reigning national champions trying to repeat. Twelve months ago, fans wondered if Villanova could reach reach the second weekend of the Big Dance.
“I don’t know if one is harder than the other,” Wright said during Wednesday’s press conference at the Key Bank Center. “They are definitely different. There’s, I would say, the same level of pressure, but it’s a different kind of pressure.”
Seven years after a 2009 Final Four run, the Wildcats shouldered the burden of five first weekend exits. They responded winning the school’s second national title.
“Pressure is pressure, so you want to embrace it and try to allow it to make you better,” Wright explained. “We had a different kind of pressure last year. It was like that second-round pressure was crazy.”
Thursday, the top-seeded Wildcats (31-3) will take on sixteenth-seeded Mount St. Mary’s (20-15) in the opening round of the East Regional.
“This year, it is about repeating,” Wright said. “You’re a one seed, and so you’re supposed to win it if you’re the one seed, right? It’s all about how you handle that, and I think having that pressure last year and having pressure this year, I think makes it a little bit easier to handle.”
Then there’s the pressure of a 16-seed never beating a 1-seed. It’s got to happen some time.
“We’ve felt it before,” said Wright recalling the 2006 NCAA Tournament. “We played Monmouth in the Wells Fargo Center where we play our home games, they we were a 16 seed and they made a run on us and the whole building turned on us, and it was like a Monmouth home game in our arena.
“I was shocked. I had never experienced that. We were number one seed and everyone was going for the underdog. That’s a crazy kind of pressure especially when you’re on your home court. You know those teams, they can get it going and they put game pressure on you when you’re a one seed. You got to be ready for it and got to overcome that, too.”
Josh Hart, Kris Jenkins and Darryl Reynolds give Villanova three returning seniors.
Hart, a National Player of the Year candidate, scores 18.9 points per game for the Wildcats while grabbing 6.5 rebounds. He led the Wildcats playing 31.4 minutes per game during the championship run. Jenkins, who hit the game winner at the buzzer in last year’s national final, scores 13.4 and grabs 4.2 rebounds this year as a senior. Reynolds scores 4.7 while grabbing 5.4 boards. Sophomore Jalen Brunson logged 24 minutes a game last year. He scores 14.8 per game.
“I’m very proud of our three seniors, Josh, and Darryl, and Kris and how, at 20 years old, they are able to handle the maturity of getting past it, taking on the next challenge, continuing to be humble and get better,” Wright said of returning after winning the championship. “I don’t think I could have done that at 22. Our staff jokes about it all of the time. If we could have done what Kris Jenkins did last year, we would have been uncontrollable. And he was, all of them, very humble and coachable. I’m really proud of them for that.”
Mount St. Mary’s and Villanova will tip off at 7:10 pm.
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