Sixers win, but Villanova is the big story

SIXERS ASSISTANT coach Billy Lange could barely wipe the smile off his face during pregame workouts.

Curtis Sumpter, the Sixers' player development scout, walked the hallways of the Wells Fargo Center with the look of someone who happily had gotten little sleep in the past 48 hours.

Brett Brown (half) jokingly asked if the conversation could stay off his team and on what had happened Monday night.

And Dante Cunningham sat at his stall in the visiting locker room, a Villanova hat sitting on a shelf and his No. 33 college jersey hung neatly next to his New Orleans Pelicans one.

There was a buzz around the building Tuesday, a day after Villanova won perhaps the most exciting national championship game in history. And it had nothing to do with the 76ers securing win No. 10, ensuring they won't tie for the worst record in NBA history.

Lange served as Jay Wright's assistant at Villanova for five years, and formed a friendship that goes way beyond anything to do with basketball. He was instrumental in recruiting many of the players on Wright's squad, including Kris Jenkins, who hit the game-winner. Though he was in the comfort of his home watching the game with his four boys, Lange could feel what the buzzer-beating win over North Carolina meant to so many people.

"Jay is very comfortable in who he is and what Villanova is," said Lange. "He wants to make Villanova the best it can possibly be but he doesn't want to do it subsequent to what the university and what the basketball program has stood for. I think when you're involved in that family, we coached and we hired people based on coaching for the relationships. You don't coach for the glamour of being a coach, you coach for the relationships and the progress you get to see and the people you recruit develop on and off the court."

In Wright, there is a basketball respect that goes well beyond the Main Line, and it only partly has to do with winning the title.

"I look at Dante and I just see a player that is totally what Villanova is about," said Pelicans coach Alvin Gentry. "He is tough. He is selfless. We can ask him to do anything, to guard anyone, to play any position. Every team can use a player like that."

"Villanova basketball is about staying together and being a part of something bigger than themselves," said Cunningham, who was part of the 2009 squad that lost to North Carolina in the Final Four. "This team embodied the 'once a Wildcat, always a Wildcat' attitude. It just kind of solidifies what coach has been instilling in them since day one."

Monitors in the media section of the arena, usually set to game stats, were switched to the coverage of 'Nova buses making their way to campus.

Cunningham got a big round of applause when he was introduced. "How about that game" was the opening line to nearly every conversation. For the first time in a long, long time, basketball was a popular and fun topic at the arena during a Sixers game.

"I sat there and watched that game with my son and just to see it and have the mood swings that it had and the dramatic plays that it had, and then to have it end the way that it did, it's just fantastic for the city," said Brown, rightfully forgetting city limit barriers. "I'm thrilled for Jay, thrilled for something that you saw grow. I respect, over the past four years, the perseverance in times of disappointment in getting knocked out early. You always pay attention and you always try to learn. Just a lot of respect for their determination of not wavering and just staying the course and were rewarded with a national championship.

"As much as you want to script the world and script life, it isn't like that. The game isn't like that. Rarely does it play out like it played out (Monday). It's a part of somebody's DNA and experience that collides and you just find a trust factor that somebody is going to make good reads."

Brown knows all too well that Villanova won six games in a little over three weeks to gain the title. With its 107-93 win over New Orleans Tuesday, Brown's team has taken since Jan. 16 to win its past six games. So learning points aren't something he will pass up at any time, even if it comes while watching a game with his son on television.

"That place is special and Jay will be the first one to tell you it was that way before he got there," said Lange. "If you are the caretaker of that Villanova program, you have to know how special that family is. You exist there as the head coach, not just to draw up X's and O's, but to keep that place unified and keep those players involved with the program. It's a special place with amazing people."

Sumpter, struggling to keep his concentration after making the round trip to Houston on very little sleep the past couple of days, had just one reason for his travels.

"I had to be there for coach and for the basketball family," said Sumpter, who played for Wright from 2002-07. "That's what it's all about."

And Tuesday, though the Sixers successfully gained that elusive 10th win of the season, Villanova basketball was all the talk.

@BobCooney76

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