Villanova beats North Carolina again in 2016 NCAA title game
CBS showed a replay Sunday. Villanova players got to watch themselves.
Sure enough, it happened again. That late Phil Booth pivot move still worked. That Josh Hart block just before halftime still seemed big. Daniel Ochefu still used that big mop. And that Ryan Arcidiacono dropoff for Kris Jenkins still worked like a charm.
“For the championship …” Jim Nantz intoned.
Bang.
CBS showed the whole thing again, the 2016 NCAA title game, and it still seemed crazy, the whole plot.
What made Sunday’s reshowing fun was that Villanova’s participants were watching along and tweeting along, giving each other and the other guys a hard time.
“Man, @RyArch15 came out jacking!!!” Josh Hart tweeted right off the bat.
Ryan Arciciadono noted that Hart thought it was a good idea to bank a three. Hart responded that was because North Carolina’s Justin Jackson was hacking him.
A few minutes later, Jalen Brunson noted that he was trying to FaceTime Jackson, now his teammate with the Dallas Mavericks —“Well my friend won’t answer trying to tell him about this game that’s on. Pretty good … hope he’s already watching.”
“You better make these,’’ Kris Jenkins tweeted later, Josh Hart at the line.
Arcidiacono had tweeted that he hadn’t watched the full game since 2016. Ochefu had tweeted before the game that he wasn’t sure if he was going to watch it all “ever. I’m weird like that. You’ll let me know when we are up like 9 with like 5 or so minutes left. How we didn’t wrap the game up then still eats at me. I remember thinking to myself damn we are really about it win it all and then Marcus.”
Marcus Paige, he meant, with that convoluted three-pointer after Ochefu missed getting a fingertip on the pass.
“What a game! What a shot! Man that made my day watching this lol,’’ Booth tweeted after it was over, Jenkins securing the win.
“Man, I was blessed to hoop at Nova wit some legends man that’s all ima say,’’ tweeted Jenkins.
“FOR THE RECORD, I was open @RyArch15,’’ Booth also tweeted.
Eric Paschall and Donte DiVincenzo were scout-teamers that year since Paschall was sitting out after transferring from Fordham and DiVincenzo had gotten hurt.
“2018 was still better than 2016 but we going to let 2016 live in their moment right now!’’ Paschall tweeted.
“I’m on 2018 for the record lol,’’ Booth tweeted.
Maybe so, but there’s no debate about which title game will be remembered with the greatest in NCAA history, which game CBS chose to show on Sunday afternoon in a year when there were no live NCAA tournament games to play.