“Just how the tournament works, you know?” Booth told ESPN.
After Monday night, the narrative is much different: Villanova is the best program in college basketball.
Villanova won its second national championship in three years on Monday, dominating Michigan for most of the final 30 minutes en route to a 79-62 victory.
“I don’t think they were saying that when I first got to Nova,” Booth said Sunday of the possibility of being considered the best program in the country. “To have that being [said] is something really cool to hear.”
Monday’s game capped a quietly dominant season from Villanova. The Wildcats haven’t had a single-digit margin of victory since February. They are the fourth team to win all of its NCAA tournament games by double digits. They lost just four times all season and never by more than eight points.
The victory also caps an absurd five-year run for the Wildcats. Two national championships, four Big East titles, 165 wins, three 1-seeds and five top-two seeds. We haven’t seen a run such as this in college basketball in a long, long time.
It’s now solidified: No other program has had this sort of success over the past several years.
“If they don’t say that, they’re dumb — point-blank,” former star Josh Hart said. “If you don’t give Villanova the respect it deserves now — it’s a blue blood program. If you don’t think this is one of the best five-year runs in modern NCAA [history], it’s crazy.”
“Two titles in the last three years speaks for itself,” former Villanova guard Ryan Arcidiacono said. “We should be mentioned up there.”