The Villanova Wild Cats won the NCAA men's basketball championship 2016 in a thrilling title contest on Monday night in Texas, defeating a tough North Carolina team 77-74.Throughout the season, there wasn't one predominant team. Six teams have been ranked No. 1 this year, the NCAA tournament was up for grabs.
Yes, there were upsets as always. But in the end, for Monday night's national championship game at NRG Stadium in Houston, it will be two proven teams who have been at or proximate the top of the rankings all along, when No. 1 seed North Carolina and No. Reaching this level is nothing novel for the Tar Heels (33-6) or for head coach Roy Williams. 2 seed Villanova tip off at 9:19 p.m.
This is the team's 10th national championship game appearance, and UNC has won five times, the most recent coming in 2009.
Villanova (34-5) reached the national championship game emphatically with a 95-51 win against No. 2 seed Oklahoma on Saturday. Eight-seed Villanova, coached by Rollie Massimino, won their first national title with a 66–64 triumph in the final game over Georgetown, coached by John Thompson. The Wildcats shot an unbelievable 71.4% from the field and won by the biggest margin ever in a Final Four game. It was the second-largest field goal percentage of the men's Final Four, trailing only Villanova's 78.6% effort in the Wildcats' 1985 national championship win against No. 1 Georgetown on April 1, 1985, one of the biggest upsets in U.S.
Ed Pinckney of Villanova was named the tournament's Most Outstanding Player. The game is often refer to among the top upsets in college hoops history, and is the second biggest point-spread upset in Championship Game history. This Villanova team remains the lowest-seeded team to win the tournament. The Wildcats are also noteworthy as the last Division I men's national champion to date to represent a university that did not sponsor varsity football at the period of its title (Villanova had dropped football after the 1980 season and did not reëstablish the sport until the 1985 season, the first after the championship game). The game is also memorable as the last played without a shot clock.
