HOUSTON — The coach of the last team to defeat Villanova hopes the Wildcats beat North Carolina in the NCAA championship game and cut down the nets here at NRG Stadium on Monday night.
Seton Hall coach Kevin Willard, whose team knocked off Villanova in the Big East championship game on March 12 at Madison Square Garden, wants to see his colleague Jay Wright win one for the league.
“I take pride in what they’re doing, I think all the coaches in the Big East take pride that they’re showcasing the league so well,” Willard told SNY.tv by phone. “They’re representing the league.”
Willard said he texted Wright when Villanova made the Final Four and told him he was happy for him.
“This is what he’s been talking about [with] the league for the last two years, showing everybody how good we are,” Willard said of Wright. “I’m happy that Jay’s the one representing us because he’s been the one out there saying how good the league is. He’s been doing it and it’s just awesome.”
Wright said he’s received texts from several Big East coaches and appreciates it.
“When we play each other, we want to kill each other,” the 53-year-old said Sunday. “We’re going at it. But when it comes tournament time, we really do pull together.”
Since the breakup of the Old Big East in 2013, Wright has been the league’s standard-bearer, serving as its biggest-name and star attraction with the departures of Jim Boeheim and Rick Pitino. He has also constantly championed the new league, calling it a pure “basketball conference.”
“You’re looking at someone who’s been the ambassador for the new league,” Willard said of Wright. “He’s been very proactive in geting our name out there and trying to showcase the league, so I think if he could win a national championship it would be very well earned, very well deserved and I think you’re going to have a lot of people who are going to be ecstatic for him because he’s worked hard to get to this point. And it would just be an excellent achievement.”
This week Wright said that half of the teams in the current Big East could have made the Final Four, “but you got to do it.”
Villanova, back in the Final Four for the first time since 2009, is now in position to win the league’s first national championship since Louisville in 2013. (The Cardinals are now in the ACC after spending one year in the AAC.)
Teams from the Big East have captured the NCAA championship seven times and own a 7-5 record in the title games, including when Villanova beat Georgetown 66-64 in 1985. The Big East’s NCAA champions are: Georgetown (’84), Villanova (’85), Connecticut (’99, ’04, ’11), Syracuse (’03) and Louisville (’13).
With the departures of Louisville, UConn and Syracuse, the last team currently in the Big East to win the title was Villanova in ’85.
Now with former Villanova coach Rollie Massimino expected to be in the building, Wright can win another title — for Villanova and for the Big East Conference he has long championed.
Asked what it would mean to win, Wright said, “We want to win it bad. I don’t think it’s going to change our program that much. I think our program’s respected for what it is.”
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NThe coach of the last team to beat Villanova hopes the Wildcats win the NCAA championship and cut down the nets here on Monday night.
