Top guards Jalen Brunson, Devonte’ Graham respect each other’s games

SAN ANTONIO — It was awfully tempting to view the Villanova-Kansas Final Four matchup Saturday night as a duel between two first-team all-Americas, point guards Jalen Brunson and Devonte’ Graham. So tempting, in fact, that one fan grinned wide at the prospect of it, a fan who also happens to be the Kansas coach.

“The thing that makes both Jalen and Devonte’ so good is they’re terrific players, but their intangibles are even better than their abilities,” Bill Self said on Friday. “It will be a great matchup. Even though we switch a lot and they do, too, I hope they’re matched up against each other quite a bit because I think it will be fun for people to see that and certainly fun to coach it.”

As enticing as that one frame might be, though, both of those players and their teammates saw a much larger picture in their heads. For players on both sides of the NCAA Tournament semifinal, the context was about their schools’ basketball histories and the place that this game would have in it.

“That’s all Kansas is built on,” Graham said on the eve of the Final Four, referring to Jayhawks tradition. “It’s not about us. It’s much bigger than us.”

Villanova players did not have to look that far back to invoke tradition. Brunson was a member of the squad that won the national championship two years ago. He and his teammates also know all about coach Rollie Massimino and the improbable national championship in 1985. They know how close their coach Jay Wright was with Massimino, his former boss, and they recognize that this is the university’s first trip to the Big Dance since Massimino died.

“His presence was always felt when he was around, always put a smile on everyone’s faces,” Brunson said on Friday. “He just loved to be around the game.”

It is undeniable that anyone who loves basketball would be drawn to a matchup between two of the five top players in the country. Graham and Brunson were the only non-freshmen on The Associated Press first All-America team announced last week.

Wright downplayed it, in the context of a compliment. He said that he never would relish the prospect of going up against Graham.

Opposing players generally are gracious about each other before games and these two guards tend to be gracious anyway. So, each spoke highly of the other.

“He’s a great player and he’s done so much for that program,” said Brunson, who was entering a fourth consecutive marquee matchup, having won games against Alabama’s Collin Sexton, West Virginia’s Jevon Carter and Texas Tech’s Keenan Evans. He recalled a March Madness game against Kansas two years ago and said he thought Graham was good enough for the pros then.

Graham cited the fact Brunson was named national player of the year by The Associated Press and the basketball writers association, adding, “He’s a great player. He does a lot of things very well. He knows how to take the shot and make plays for others.”

But the two are only temporary keepers of their universities’ basketball flames. Self had become emotional after the Elite Eight win over Duke last Sunday and later told reporters, “Our basketball history here is comparable to the greatest histories of any sport on any campus in America.” He mentioned that Dr. James Naismith, the inventor of basketball, was the first Kansas coach.

Villanova players have their fresh memories of cutting down the nets after the final game in 2016 and seeing Massimino exhorting Wright from his seat right behind the bench.

“We’re in the championship game, there’s a lot of pressure, and he looks at coach and tells him to fix his little pocket [handkerchief],” Mikal Bridges said. “Everybody was nervous, everybody was really anxious for this game, and you just see him point at coach, like, ‘You’ve got to coach, but fix this first.’ ”