Armour: Villanova clearly got Jay Wright's message, Wildcats stay focused to the end

HOUSTON — Far better Jay Wright apologize to the other team than his own.

Still haunted by how overwhelmed Villanova was on its last trip to the Final Four, Wright spent the week hammering home the need for his team to stay focused. Given the way the Wildcats turned around and hammered Oklahoma on Saturday night, they clearly got Wright’s message.

“That was just one of those games that could happen to anybody,” Wright said after the 95-51 win that sent Villanova to its first national title game since winning it in 1985. “I feel bad for Oklahoma that it happened to them in the Final Four.”

It wasn’t simply the margin of victory, largest in Final Four history and more apropos of one of those early season gimme games than a national semifinal. No, it was the way Villanova took it to Oklahoma from the opening tip and never let up, smothering Buddy Hield and the Sooners so tightly it will be August before they’re breathing normally again.

Villanova dominates Buddy Hield, Oklahoma 95-51, roars into title game

There was purpose to every Villanova possession, on both ends of the court. There was no celebrating, no smiling, no hot dogging it even when everyone knew the game was well out of hand. Wright was still jawing at his players late in the game and was so focused on, well, maintaining focus, that he rejected assistant coach Baker Dunleavy’s idea of putting in the subs for the last few minutes.

“When you’re in it, you’re not thinking clearly about that, about the game being over,” Wright said.

He may not be able to do anything about that 2009 blowout to North Carolina in Villanova’s last Final Four appearance, but he can make sure it never happens again.

All week, Wright has talked about the lessons he learned from that 2009 loss. Coaches never like losing, but it’s tolerable so long as they know they didn’t beat themselves. For seven years, Wright has had to live with the knowledge that that wasn’t the case against North Carolina.

The Tar Heels went on to win the national title that year so maybe Villanova would have lost, anyway. But Wright knows North Carolina didn’t get Villanova’s best shot, and he knew it that night.

“You could just see the focus in Carolina,” Wright said earlier this week. “You could see our guys were just playing a game. I knew. It was about 10 minutes into the game. I knew. I was like, `I didn't get these guys ready.’

“Obviously Roy (Williams) had been there many times. They were ready,” Wright said. “They were playing on a completely different level than we were. We were there to play a fun game in front of a big crowd.”

Wright would apologize to his players afterward — and promise he'd never have to again.

The Villanova players joked that it wasn’t hard to keep their mind on the court, given that all they saw once they got to Houston was the hotel, the bus and the arena. Wright even changed his team’s schedule because of those lingering bad memories from 2009, having his players do the bulk of their game prep at home before leaving for the Final Four.

They also had a closed practice Thursday so they could get used to shooting in a dome, where the depth perception has played tricks on many a player’s eye.

“We’re going to be good. We kept telling them that,” Wright said. “We didn't shoot the ball well in here on Thursday. Friday we did shooting drills. We started shooting pretty well. Our shootaround today, we shot it pretty well.

“I think (Thursday’s practice) really helped.”

Clearly, given that Villanova shot a jaw-dropping 71.4% for the game.

Bad ending to great career for Oklahoma's Buddy Hield

Hard as Wright worked to keep his players dialed in, there was only so much he could control once they took the floor Saturday night. Vice President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, were in Villanova’s cheering section. Former President George Bush was in attendance, too. There were hundreds of cameras tracking the players’ every move, and the arena was filled clear up to the ceiling.

It would have been understandable had the players been flustered or showed some nerves. It sure looked as if Oklahoma did.

But from the opening tip, Villanova was locked in, even more focused than Wright had asked them to be. So much so that when Josh Hart, he of the 23 points on 10 of 12 shooting, was asked about Biden, his eyes widened.

“I didn’t know he was here,” Hart said.

“It definitely was difficult,” Hart said of keeping their focus. “When you have a coach that's been through it, it all trickles down from him. We have five great seniors who, you know, the whole week were just focused on Villanova basketball, being dialed in, playing Villanova basketball for 40 minutes.”

Villanova played the Wright way, and no apologies are necessary for that.

Follow columnist Nancy Armour on Twitter @nrarmour.