Shortly after Villanova’s 77-74 victory over North Carolina in Monday’s national championship matchup, Mike DeCourcy of SportingNews.com was calling it the “greatest title game ever.” On Tuesday, he joined The David Glenn Show to explain why:
“I know that some of the people who listen to me have various reasons for totally disagreeing with me. The Heels in the audience will say, of course, that it was not great, because they lost. The Pack in the audience will say, ‘Look at what we did in ‘83.’ There are people who believe that to be the greatest title game. I disagree with that because, if you look back to ‘83, it was a great win and it was won by great players and a great team, but the game was lost because Houston did not do these things. It was won, in the end, because things kind of went haywire, but then they went right at the very last moment.
What happened last night was two teams playing great basketball. There was one momentary lapse where you had four consecutive missed free throws between the two teams. There have to be mistakes made, some of the things Carolina did defensively on the last possession and all that, but Villanova had to make a great play. Carolina had to make an even better play to put Villanova in the position to have to make a great play. That sequence, on top of what was really a beautiful basketball game for the entire night, I just don’t think that you could top it.
It wasn’t as beautifully played, and we didn’t have one of the top 10 college basketball players of all time in Laettner, but it was reminiscent of the way that Duke-Kentucky (in the 1992 Elite Eight) ended with Sean Woods making a ridiculous shot and then Duke making a ridiculous play to what was not necessarily a ridiculous shot, but a ridiculous play to cover the whole court and get it set up and get in position for that shot. So there was some reminiscence in the ending of that. I still believe that game, which I was also fortunate enough to be at, was the greatest game ever played, but I think that this was the title game that we will measure all the others by.”
During the conversation, DeCourcy also talked which NBA rule he doesn’t want to creep into the college game. Click below to hear the full interview: