Jalen Brunson may have won the Naismith Men’s College Player of the Year award, but it was the “Michael Jordan of Delaware” who stole the show in Monday night’s NCAA Tournament Championship game.
Unless you’re a fan of Villanova, you’d probably never heard of Donte DiVincenzo before his record setting national championship performance, but the redshirt sophomore’s name will forever be a part of Villanova lore after his 31 point performance carried the Wildcats to their 2nd title in 3 years.
“I did not think that I was going to have this kind of night,” DiVincenzo told reporters after the game, “because every night I come into a game I just try to bring energy. And if we start off, we get off to a good start, I try to take the energy to a new level.”
But tonight Donte didn’t compliment a good start, he was the good start.
Early in the first quarter it looked like it would be Moe Wagner’s night after the Michigan forward scored 11 points in the first 9 minutes – leading the Wolverines to a 7 point lead. But a 23-7 run before halftime, spurred by 12 points from DiVincenzo, would ultimately close the door on Michigan’s hopes for an upset.
“We needed to play better,” John Beilein said after the game, “but even if we had played our best, it would have been very difficult to win that game with what DiVincenzo did. It was an incredible performance. Sometimes those individual performances just beat you.”
Villanova finishes the 2017-2018 season in dominate and record setting fashion. The Wildcats won each of their tournament games by 12 points, becoming the 4th team in tournament history to win each game by double digits. Their 36 wins were the most for a single season.
Notes:
- DiVincenzo’s 31 points is the most ever scored by a non-starter.
- Villanova finishes the year 18-0 against non-conference opponents.
- The loss snapped Michigan’s NCAA-leading 14-game winning streak.
- Michigan tied a season low with 6 assists.
How DiVincenzo got the “Michael Jordan of Delaware’ nickname as told by Jay Wright:
“I said it – He told me this. I didn’t know this. He said I said it to him facetiously in his freshman year when he was acting like a superstar and I said to him: You act like you’re the Michael Jordan of Delaware. I don’t remember saying that. But he said that. And then other people started saying it. So then I thought that the players were repeating it. So I thought they called him that. So I started saying it. That became his name.”
If you are DiVincenzo your stock may never be higher than it is right now, he might want to strike while the iron is hot. The longer you stay in college the more they will nitpick at your game.
He should declare and not sign an agent, just in case he doesn’t like what he hears from scouts, that way he can come back.