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NEW YORK — Iowa basketball coach Fran McCaffery is a Philly native, a La Salle High School graduate, a former player and assistant coach at Penn.
If anybody understands Philly basketball, it’s McCaffery. If anybody appreciates Philly basketball, it’s McCaffery.
And after watching Villanova dismantle his Hawkeyes in the NCAA South Regional quarterfinals at Barclays Center in Brooklyn Sunday, McCaffery did a great job putting his finger on what makes this Villanova team special. What makes this Villanova program special.
It’s not offense or defense. It’s togetherness. It’s unselfishness. It’s character. It’s a team-first mentality you rarely see at the elite level in NCAA Division I.
And it's got the Wildcats rolling.
“I think if you possess that kind of character, then you have a real legitimate shot to advance in this tournament because that's what you need,” McCaffery said.
“Now, it also helps when you have shot makers and you have some depth and you have some athleticism and some size. I mean, they've got all the pieces that you have to have, but there's a lot more to it.
“So I would say you look at the really good teams that we played this year, so many of them in our league, and we played a lot out of the league. We played Notre Dame. We played Dayton. We played Michigan State. You go right on down the line. All the teams in the league, Maryland.
“Villanova is a team that I look as an elite team, but I look at them more as an elite program, I think, than anything else.”
Villanova led Iowa by as many as 34 points on the way to a 19-point win Sunday at the Barclays Center.
Villanova advanced to the Sweet 16 and a meeting with Miami at the KFC Yum! Center in Louisville in the South Regional semifinals.
“I really think they can go a long way,” said McCaffery, who’s taken four different Division I schools to the NCAA Tournament.
“They're a really difficult team to guard. A lot of times, really talented offensive teams play defense in spurts, and they don't. They play defense equally as well as they play offense, and I think … our guys have been impressed watching film and then playing against Villanova, how they share the basketball.
“You've got a lot of really talented guys. You've got a lot of guys with strong egos.
“But it's clear to me that, as a group, Jay has got those guys committed to one thing, and that's playing together and winning. I think that's evident in their success over the years.”
Villanova is 31-5 this year and 93-13 over the past three seasons. The Wildcats have averaged 23½ wins per year in Wright’s 15 seasons and are making their fifth trip to the Sweet 16 since 2005, Wright’s fourth year.
Only six coaches have reached more Sweet 16s at their current school than Wright, and it’s quite a list: Mike Krzyzewski, Jim Boeheim, Tom Izzo, Roy Williams, Rick Pitino and Bill Self.
Talk about elite company.
“It's not this year,” McCaffery said. “And it is this year, but it's last year, the year before, the year before. There's a winning culture there that says a lot about the character of the individuals on that team.”