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When the play ends, as Kris Jenkins bends over a bit at the waist to watch his work of art swish its way into history, Mikal Bridges dashes onto the court and Josh Hart full scale piggy backs onto Phil Booth. Somehow, Jalen Brunson ends up on the floor, the back of his jersey showing in the dogpile to celebrate Villanova’s 2016 national championship.
Now 10 years later, those three of those guys could make history. Should Hart, Bridges and Brunson lead the New York Knicks to the NBA Championship, they will become the first trio of teammates to play on the same college and NBA title-winning teams.
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Three guys from the same championship-winning college squads have won NBA crowns. In 1951, Frank Ramsey, Lou Tsioropoulos and Cliff Hagan won it all for Kentucky, and in 1960, Jerry Lucas, John Havlicek and Larry Siegfried were part of Ohio State’s title-winning team.
None have done both together. Ramsey and Tsioropoulous partnered for two titles with the Celtics, Hagan’s championship was with the Hawks. Meanwhile Lucas’ NBA crown with the Knicks came a full decade after Havlicek and Siegfried won it all in Boston.
That they could do it in New York, a city that bills itself as basketball’s playground and has nothing but five decades of empty sandlots to show for it, would only add to the legend of the so-called “Nova Knicks.”
Except if you unspool it, if you watch that 2016 shot, you’ll see that the Nova Knicks are more than a clever and convenient nickname. In those final 4.7 seconds, in a play designed to win a national championship, the three active players on that roster who are still in the NBA had little or nothing to do with the play called Nova.
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Hart was well away from the action, setting a screen. Bridges and Brunson weren’t even in the game. They were on the bench watching.
It serves as an example of what college basketball used to be.
Mikal Bridges and Jalen Brunson help up Josh Hart during a game against the Detroit Pistons in the…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/villanova-shaped-york-knicks-dominant-101835157.html
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Publish date : 2026-06-03 10:18:00
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