A March Madness dominated by shocking upsets ended on the second day of April by finishing exactly as many predicted.
In San Antonio on Monday night, the Villanova Wildcats defeated the Michigan Wolverines 79-62 to earn their second national NCAA championship in three seasons.
As was the case for most of the seasons, Villanova’s long-distance shooting helped propel them to victory as the Wildcats knocked down 10 of 27 3-pointers during their convincing win. On the other side of the box score, Michigan was able to connect on only 3 of 23 long-range attempts.
Half of Villanova’s 3-pointers came off the hands of 6th man Donte DiVincenzo as he was by far the breakout star of the game and finished with 31 points – the highest scoring performance all season by a Michigan opponent – and earned the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player award.
“Even if we had played our best, it would have been very difficult to win that game with what DiVincenzo did,” coach John Beilein said afterward. “It was an incredible performance. Sometimes those individual performances just beat you, and you just say, ‘OK. We played you the best we could, and tonight, you were better than us.’”
The 31 points for DiVincenzo were the most points ever in an NCAA championship game by a non-starter.
In an early AP pool for next season, Duke is ranked as the top team in the nation followed Kansas, Villanova, Kentucky and North Carolina.
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