Villanova

Villanova experienced a wide swing in its level of play all season, from the embarrassing 18-point home loss to Columbia in November to the March win over Georgetown - its third over a top-five team, which enabled the Wildcats to virtually punch their ticket to the NCAA tournament. Even though two of their weakest areas were exposed in Friday night's 78-71 NCAA South Regional loss to North Carolina that ended their season in Kansas City, Mo., the Wildcats look ahead with optimism after posting a seven-win improvement over the previous year and returning to the tournament.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Villanova did what it does every game. It tried. But trying wasn't enough against North Carolina on Friday night, and although the Wildcats made it more of a game than the Tar Heels wanted, they didn't complete the Philly sweep of second-round NCAA tournament games. Down by 20 in the first half, Villanova fought back to take a one-point lead midway through the second but couldn't keep the outcome from slipping though its hands in the final minutes. So, it won't be three for the show come Sunday, when Temple and La Salle will be playing for a berth in the Sweet 16 round.

KANSAS CITY - You never want it to end this early. Especially when you're not that far removed from some really long NCAA Tournament runs. And on a day when two other Big 5 teams already won, one in the game right before yours, and you're trying to complete an unprecedented city trifecta. But the reality is, without winning its regular-season finale against Georgetown, Villanova's third win over a Top 5 team this season, it isn't even in the Madness for the eighth time in 9 years. And when you're coming off a 13-19 disaster that tied a program record for losses, well, you just don't want to fall too far off the radar.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - He played his last game as he did so many of the others, with unending hustle and an undying spirit. This was it for 6-foot-10, 250-pound Villanova senior Mouphtaou Yarou, who ended his career with another strong effort, scoring 17 points and grabbing eight rebounds during the Wildcats' 78-71 loss to North Carolina in a second-round NCAA South Regional game at the Sprint Center. During his time at Villanova, Yarou was as respected as much for his genial personality and leadership as he was for his game.

Villanova women's coach Harry Perretta, being Harry Perretta, could pop up anywhere basketball-related. There he was in Brooklyn one afternoon with his sons, checking out La Salle's quarterfinal Atlantic Ten 10 men's tournament game. Saw him last Monday at the Philadelphia Small College Coaches' Association banquet. Didn't matter that it was the same time as the selection show for the NCAA women's tournament, of which Perretta would be a participant. His friend of "30-some years" Bob Heller, sports information director at the University of the Sciences, got inducted that night into the organization's Hall of Fame.

Villanova's 1985 NCAA Tournament championship remains a watershed of local college basketball. Not quite so well-remembered these days is the 1971 Wildcats squad that came within one game of winning the whole enchilada. On March 27 - after beating Fordham, Penn (by a 90-47 margin) and Western Kentucky - the Jack Kraft-coached 'Cats lined up at Houston's Astrodome against the juggernaut that was John Wooden's UCLA Bruins squad (featuring three future NBA standouts, Henry Bibby, Curtis Rowe and Sidney Wicks)

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - College basketball teams fight all season to get to the NCAA tournament and, for the lucky ones that make it, that's when they start to find out how lucky they really are. Villanova, which needed some good fortune and a few nice upsets to get this far, has run into what every coach fears at this time of year - an unpromising matchup. It isn't that North Carolina, which the Wildcats play Friday evening to open their tournament, is a powerhouse or even in the same class as some of the better Tar Heels teams.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Villanova rallied from a 20-point deficit during its NCAA South Regional game Friday night against North Carolina, and that wasn't really a surprise to followers of the scrappy Wildcats this season. But the Wildcats allowed their opponent to rain in three-pointers from all over the Sprint Center, and that wasn't a surprise, either. The eighth-seeded Tar Heels knocked down 11 threes, five by P.J. Hairston, in their 78-71 second-round victory and gave the No. 9-seeded Wildcats an early exit from the tournament.

Who's hot For Villanova, JayVaughn Pinkston averaged 17.7 points in his last three games and scored 20 points during that stretch from the free-throw line. For North Carolina, P.J. Hairston averaged 20.7 points in the ACC tournament (three games) and shot 48 percent (13 of 27) from three-point range.   Who's not Darrun Hilliard scored just 11 points in the Wildcats' two Big East tournament games, with zero three-pointers and nine turnovers. Leslie McDonald, the Tar Heels' sixth man, shot just 5 of 19 in the ACC tournament and averaged 7.3 points.

A 7-foot-1 backup center for the 1985 national champion Villanova Wildcats, Chuck Everson said there is a series of four questions that everyone always asks him. "People come up to me and the first thing they say to me is, 'How tall are you?' " Everson said. "I tell them, and they say, 'Do you play basketball?' I tell them. 'Where do you play?' I tell them, and they say, 'Were you on that team?' And I say yeah. " "Then I hear everybody's story about where they were the night we beat Georgetown," he added.