Tucson CitizenTucson Citizen

Villanova defeats yet another higher seed

BOSTON – No team has beaten more favorites in the NCAA Tournament through the years than Villanova.

The third-seeded Wildcats beat No. 2 seed Duke for the first time in more than 50 years on Thursday night, getting 14 points and 11 rebounds from Dante Cunningham to win 77-54 and advance to the East Region final.

It was Villanova’s 14th NCAA victory over a higher-seeded team – the most in tournament history.

“Hopefully that will be some magical power that helps us beat Pitt,” Wildcats guard Scottie Reynolds said.

Villanova (29-7) will play Big East rival and No. 1 seed Pittsburgh (31-4) on Saturday for a trip to the Final Four. The Wildcats beat Pitt 67-57 in their regular-season meeting at Philadelphia on Jan. 28.

“When coach handed us the brackets, he only gave us the four teams in our area. We looked up and knew Pittsburgh was in that area,” Cunningham said. “That’s something we kind of looked forward to.”

The Panthers spent three weeks as the No. 1 team in the country this season. They were ranked third when they faced Villanova.

But rankings and seeds have meant little to the Wildcats. They’re 14-12 as a lower seed since 1979, including their 1985 run to the national championship as a No. 8 seed – the lowest ever to win it all.

“It just shows what kind of program and tradition we have here,” Reynolds said.

Villanova was playing on the tournament’s second weekend for the fourth time in five years, though Jay Wright’s Wildcats have yet to reach the Final Four. But the fans could sense another chance, chanting “We want Pitt!” when Corey Stokes hit a 3-pointer with 2:27 left to give Villanova a 71-50 lead.

Citizen Online Archive, 2006-2009

This archive contains all the stories that appeared on the Tucson Citizen's website from mid-2006 to June 1, 2009.

In 2010, a power surge fried a server that contained all of videos linked to dozens of stories in this archive. Also, a server that contained all of the databases for dozens of stories was accidentally erased, so all of those links are broken as well. However, all of the text and photos that accompanied some stories have been preserved.

For all of the stories that were archived by the Tucson Citizen newspaper's library in a digital archive between 1993 and 2009, go to Morgue Part 2

Search site | Terms of service