Last Shot Wins Title for Nova’

 

 

Kris Jenkins is one of those players who believes every shot is going in.

Sometimes, it feels so right to be right.

The Villanova junior answered a double-clutch, game-tying 3-pointer by North Carolina’s Marcus Paige with a buzzer-beating 3 of his own Monday night to lift the Wildcats to a 77-74 victory and the national championship.

One good shot deserved another.

And Jenkins wasn’t about to be outdone.

”I think every shot’s going in,” he said, ”and this one was no different.”

The shot came on a play Villanova works on every day in practice: Jenkins inbounds the ball to Ryan Arcidiacono, he works it up court and forward Daniel Ochefu sets a pick near halfcourt to clutter things up, then Arcidiacono creates.

This time, the senior point guard made an underhanded flip to Jenkins, who spotted up a pace or two behind the arc and swished it with Carolina’s Isaiah Hicks running at him. Or, as Jenkins put it: ”One, two step, shoot `em up, sleep in the streets.”

Jenkins had to come up big after Paige collected a pass on the top right side of the arc and, with Arcidiacono running at him, double clutched and pumped it in to tie the game at 74 with 4.7 seconds left.

It completed a Carolina comeback from six points down with 1:52 left.

Coach Jay Wright called timeout and called the play the Wildcats (33-5) have worked on all season.

”I didn’t have to say anything in the huddle,” he said. ”We have a name for it, that’s what we’re going to do. Just put everybody in their spots.”

He knew the shot was going in, too.

”Bang,” Wright said as he watched it fall, then calmly walked to shake Carolina coach Roy Williams’ hand. Confetti flew. The refs looked at the replay to make sure the shot got off in time. It did. The points went up on the scoreboard. Celebration on.

Jenkins finished with 14 points – the last three as memorable as any that have been scored in the history of this tournament.

After being thrown to the floor by his teammates, Jenkins got up, leaped over press row, hugged his birth mom – a college basketball coach who helped him hone his shot – and shouted, ”They said we couldn’t, they said we couldn’t, they said we couldn’t.”

Oh yes, they could.

This adds to the title Villanova won in 1985, when Rollie Massimino, who was on hand Monday night, coaxed a miracle out of his eighth-seeded underdogs for a victory over star-studded Georgetown.

Hard to top this one, though.

Jenkins, who was adopted by the family of North Carolina guard Nate Britt when his mother moved to take a coaching job, now has a spot alongside – and probably above – Keith Smart, Lorenzo Charles, Christian Laettner and everyone else who ever made a late game-winner to win a big one in March Madness.

Wilson Comes from Royalty

 

 

Russell Wilson got an eye-opening history lesson during a visit to his Virginia hometown over the weekend.

The Seahawks quarterback on Saturday attended the Richmond Forum, where he made an appearance with renown historian Henry Louis Gates Jr. Gates. After conducting thorough research, the host of the PBS show “Finding Your Roots” revealed to Wilson in front of a crowd of 4,500 that his ancestry included at least one English king. 

I knew it,” Wilson said, via the Richmond Times-Dispatch. “Some of our ancestors may have grown up as slaves. Some may have been slave owners. … We forget we’re all human.”

Gates also showed Wilson a document that listed his slave ancestors as property worth $1,000 and shared a story about his heritage that included an 18-year-old slave woman who sued to have her family freed.

“What it all goes back to is really loving people,” Wilson said. “Sometimes you have to forget what a person looks like, forget what a person believes in, forget what a person does have or does not have. … You have to look deep inside and love. … Because you’re probably connected.”

At last, there’s an explanation as to why Wilson’s young football career is already the stuff of legends.