In a time where sports and particularly college sports might\u00a0seem like\u00a0the most miniscule and unimportant thing in the world, the\u00a0US still brings itself to watch one of the greatest spectacles in sport: March Madness. And\u00a0in the midst\u00a0of a chaotic presidential race, last year’s tournament helped people forget and bring them together with the help of one team and one spectacular title game. When the Villanova Wildcats entered the 2016 tournament they came with an impressive 82 wins over the last\u00a0three seasons. They also came with the notoriety of\u00a0being bounced from the\u00a0dance in the early rounds five out of the last six seasons. They were\u00a0the\u00a0Cinderella, underdog, long shot.\u00a0 This Villanova team\u00a0was what makes\u00a0American sports so\u00a0great:\u00a0A team\u00a0that people\u00a0rally\u00a0behind, outstanding leadership, the feel good story. After a regular season that landed them a second seed in the South Region the stage was set once again to make their statement amongst the country’s elite.\u00a0During the\u00a0dance they not only exceeded the expectations of national pundits they absolutely destroyed them. They edged out overall\u00a0seed Kansas\u00a0Jayhawks\u00a0in the Elite Eight and then a dominating\u00a0Final Four win over Oklahoma to advance to the National Championship game where they faced off against North Carolina-one of college basketball’s\u00a0elite\u00a0and regular title contenders. With 4.7 seconds left, Carolina guard Marcus Paige threw up\u00a0a miracle three\u00a0to tie the game at 74. And with overtime looming, Nova stole America’s heart with a game winning buzzer beater by Kris Jenkins that captured the Wildcats’ first\u00a0title since 1985.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Luke Winn\/Sports Illustrated:PHILADELPHIA THREEDOM\/ 11.04.16<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In a time where sports and particularly college sports might\u00a0seem like\u00a0the most miniscule and unimportant thing in the world, the\u00a0US still brings itself to watch one of the greatest spectacles in sport: March Madness. And\u00a0in the midst\u00a0of a chaotic presidential race, last year’s tournament helped people forget and bring them together with the help of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/evst399.mcguire-spickard.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1066"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/evst399.mcguire-spickard.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/evst399.mcguire-spickard.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/evst399.mcguire-spickard.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/evst399.mcguire-spickard.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1066"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/evst399.mcguire-spickard.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1066\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1075,"href":"https:\/\/evst399.mcguire-spickard.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1066\/revisions\/1075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/evst399.mcguire-spickard.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/evst399.mcguire-spickard.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/evst399.mcguire-spickard.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}