The Latest
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Living the Dream: Jenkins hits playground shot on biggest stage
BOX SCORE HOUSTON — Playground perfect, that’s what this was. It doesn’t happen in life. In the real world, there are messy contradictions and inquiries and qualifiers and then, maybe a decision is handed down that very well could be appealed or reviewed or overturned. But on the playground when you’re alone and 10 years old, this is the way...
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Phil Booth, the guy who hit the shot before the shot for Villanova
HOUSTON — In any normal championship game, say, one that was not a heavyweight title fight decided on a final-punch knockout at the 12th-round bell, Phil Booth would have been the star. He would have been remembered for the shot of the game, as the champion’s high scorer, maybe the Most Outstanding Player. But this was no normal game. Not…
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Not a typical Cinderella, Villanova deserves fairytale ending
HOUSTON — It appears the mold has cooled and the national news factory has plunked down another story title for this 24-hour cycle: Villanova is the lovable Cinderella. Boy, I don’t know if that’ll fly back home, huh? No matter. Here, the foremen have measured it and scanned the prototype and proclaimed: Yep. It’ll fit. North Carolina is the Goliath...
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Buddy Hield had no chance against Villanova's suffocating D
HOUSTON — Everyone will remember this game as the time the Villanova Wildcats almost eclipsed their own “Perfect Game,” the 66-64 near-flawless offensive performance in the national championship against Georgetown, with a shooting night maybe even more awe-inspiring against Oklahoma (see story). ‘Nova hit 71.4 percent from the field, 77.4 percent on two-point shots — just a hair’s breadth off that…
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Isaiah Cousins — not just Buddy Hield — key to Villanova-Oklahoma
Oklahoma and Villanova have played previously this season. It was on a Pearl Harbor naval base on Pearl Harbor Day in a strange encounter that will not likely be replicated on Saturday in Houston. Villanova’s defense then was not what it is now. The Wildcats’ propensity for slow starts early in the season has emphatically not been in evidence...