Big East Basketball

For the first time since 2017 and the third time in program history, the Villanova Wildcats are Battle 4 Atlantis champions.

Villanova defeated Memphis 79-63 in dominant fashion on Friday at Imperial Arena at the Atlantis Paradise Island resort in the Bahamas to win the 2023 Battle 4 Atlantis title.

The Wildcats dominated Friday's matchup and even took a 28-point lead into halftime. While Memphis made a push in the second half, the team's first half deficit was too large to overcome.

TJ Bamba, Tyler Burton and Eric Dixon were the leaders for Villanova. Bamba finished with 13 points, three rebounds and two assists, Burton finished with 11 points, nine rebounds and two assists and Dixon finished with 11 points, eight rebounds and one assist.

David Jones was the leader for Memphis, finishing with 13 points, seven rebounds and two assists.

After the game, college basketball fans on X, formerly known as Twitter, were quick to say that the Wildcats are back in NCAA title-contending form:

With the Battle 4 Atlantis trophy locked up, Villanova will now gear up for a matchup against Saint Joseph's on Wednesday before taking on Kansas State on Dec. 5.

An overtime battle between the Kansas State and Providence men's basketball teams turned physical Friday night.

Kansas State freshman guard Dai Dai Ames and Providence freshman guard Garwey Dual were ejected from the game after fighting during extra time.

After several instances of Ames making contact with Dual on the court, Dual turned around and hit Ames in the face.

The two were then physically separated by Providence head coach Kim English and other members of the coaching staff.

Kansas State won 73-70 as David N'Guessan scored six points in extra time.

The contest was a neutral-site game held in Nassau, Bahamas as part of the first round of the Baha Mar Hoops Bahamas Championship.

Ames and Dual are each slated to serve automatic one-game suspensions following their ejections, according to Fox's John Fanta.

Dual will miss Providence's Sunday game against Georgia, while Kansas State will take on Miami the same day without Ames.

St. John's is not getting off to the best of starts under Rick Pitino.

The men's basketball team lost to Division II Pace on Sunday, 63-59, in an exhibition that saw the Red Storm shoot an abysmal 26 percent from the field (6-of-34).

St. John's paid Pace $5,000 to participate in the exhibition matchup, with head coach Matt Healing telling ESPN's Myron Medcalf that, "For us Division II programs, every little bit helps."

He added that Pitino was "gracious and complimentary" in defeat.

"[Pitino] was just very complimentary," he noted. "He said, 'Great game. You guys deserve this. Heckuva job coaching. Your kids fought like hell.' That's really what it was about. We were thankful."

St. John's opened its exhibition schedule ahead of the 2023-24 regular season with an 89-78 win over Rutgers, and on Sunday was without key players in Joel Soriano and Jordan Dingle. With Pitino bringing aboard 10 transfers after taking the job, there were bound to be some hiccups for the Red Storm.

It just wasn't expected to come against a DII school like Pace.

St. John's men's basketball coach Rick Pitino may have 12 new players this fall, but he says the challenge he faced in Queens was different than Deion Sanders' complete overhaul of Colorado Buffaloes football.

"It was tough, but the difference between Deion, Deion had a lot of players weren't ready to play at that level," Pitino said on ESPN SportsCenter Thursday. "I had really good players at St. John's, Mike Anderson did a tremendous job recruiting. I just wanted a whole different culture. But the guys that were here, they could play."

Pitino's comments come around the one-minute mark of the video below.

Excepting returning center Joel Soriano, Pitino is coaching an almost entirely new team in his first season at the helm of St. John's after adding 10 transfers and two freshmen this offseason.

Sanders went through a similar roster overhaul prior to his first season on the sideline of Colorado, where he brought in 86 new players to the Buffaloes.

Pitino said during his introductory press conference in March that "a lot" of the team's players would not be returning because he needed players who were "total, over-the-top in love with the game of basketball," per The Athletic's Dana O'Neil.

"And if you're not, it's just a bad fit with me. It doesn't work," Pitino said said then. "So there will be a lot of players who, I hope, will move on to greener pastures."

Pitino will now hope installing this new culture will help the Red Storm bounce back from consecutive 15-loss seasons.

UConn men's basketball is celebrating its 2023 NCAA tournament championship win in style.

The Huskies on Friday released the details of the team's championship rings, which are each studded with five diamonds to celebrate the program's five national titles in 1999, 2004, 2011, 2014 and 2023.

In addition to the image of the trophy, the Final Four logo and the team mascot, the ring is engraved with multiple memorable title run statistics.

The outer circle surrounding the logo on the face of the ring is filled with 76 stones, representing the final score of the Huskies' 76-59 win over San Diego State in the April championship game.

The side of the ring lists the Huskies' 31-8 regular-season record, which constituted the first 30-win season in five years at UConn for head coach Dan Hurley.

Inside the ring is the number "120," the number of total points by which UConn outscored opponents through six games. Beneath that total is the final score of each of the Huskies' six wins, including the title-sealing victory over the Aztecs.

UConn was just the fourth NCAA champion since 1985 to win by such a large margin of victory, so it makes sense the team would celebrate with equally large bling.

There has never before been a college basketball game played at Arthur Ashe Stadium.

St. John's men's basketball head coach Rick Pitino is working to change that in 2024-25 by playing Duke there, according to College Hoops Today's Jon Rothstein and Forbes' Adam Zagoria.

"We're not definite, we're in negotiations with that," Pitino told Zagoria Friday. "I know both teams are interested in doing it. I know we've been in negotiations, but I think the likelihood is more positive than negative."

Arthur Ashe can seat more than 23,000 fans, making it the world's largest tennis stadium. The last time the venue hosted a basketball game was a WNBA contest between the New York Liberty and Indiana Fever 15 years ago.

The Liberty and Indiana stepped onto the Arthur Ashe Stadium court in late July, so those players competed in the first regular-season pro basketball game ever played outdoors.

For Duke and St. Johns, who would be playing in the winter months, maintaining the temperature in what is usually the U.S. Open court could be trickier. Arthur Ashe Stadium added a retractable roof in 2016, but Pitino expressed concern that the stadium would be temperate enough.

"Well, first they've got to make sure they have heat in the building," Pitino told Zagoria. "I know it's enclosed but you gotta have heat."

A potential game at Arthur Ashe Stadium isn't the only unique location Pitino is eyeing for the Red Storm in the 2024-25 season. St. John's also plans to play Alabama at Madison Square Garden, Pitino told Rothstein.

"The only problems we have is getting the right dates," Pitino said.

Settling those dates will be important to Pitino, who told Zagoria that securing the game at Arthur Ashe Stadium would be a "major step" for the St. John's brand.

That brand has already been on the rise following the team's hiring of the Hall of Fame coach in March. Several top recruits have since signed with the Red Storm, including top-30 prospect Simeon Wilcher and four-star prospect Jaiden Glover. Glover told the New York Post's Zach Braziller that Pitino influenced his decision to go to school in Queens.

Pitino will now see if he can expand his influence to making Arthur Ashe Stadium history.

Five-star power forward Cooper Flagg, who is 247Sports' No. 1 prospect in the class of 2024, recently made a recruiting visit to UConn. While Flagg was there, he and UConn center Donovan Clingan did a photo shoot with both wearing their respective mothers' University of Maine basketball jerseys.

Kelly Bowman Flagg, Cooper's mother, posted about it on social media:

The two were teammates for Maine in the mid-90s, a very prosperous time for the program. Maine made the NCAA tournament for the first time in 1995, starting a string of six straight March Madness appearances.

Stacey Porrini Clingan passed away from breast cancer at the age of 42 in 2018. A tribute written on the Maine website read in part:

"Directly after graduation, Porinni Clingan became an elementary school teacher and to no one's surprise, she was one of the best. Just as she was with her teammates on the court and in the classroom, Porinni Clingan was a leader. She was described as the big teddy bear that had a gift of making each person feel so special, yet being able to hold them accountable for what needed to be done."

We'll see if Flagg ends up joining Clingan at UConn, the reigning national champions. Per 247Sports, he has 12 offers and also visits lined up with Kansas and Duke.

The New York Knicks appear to be assembling the 2016-17 Villanova Wildcats, and Josh Hart wants even more.

The organization signed Donte DiVincenzo Saturday, teaming him up with fellow collegiate teammates Josh Hart and Jalen Brunson. The trio were key cogs in the Wildcats 2017 national championship, and now they will look to do the same in New York.

While three former collegiate teammates on the same NBA roster is significant, a fourth is playing just a borough away. Mikal Bridges is a star for the Brooklyn Nets, but it appears that Hart wants him to make his way to Madison Square Garden, sending a tweet to his former teammate.

All three additions to the Knicks are relatively new. DiVincenzo is clearly the newest, but Hart joined the team after being dealt by the Trail Blazers midseason. Brunson is the most senior Knick, but is still only finishing his first year with the team after signing in the summer of 2022.

Bridges is also new to New York City, coming to the Nets in the Kevin Durant trade. He does have some time left with the Nets, as he is under contract through 2026. The Nets have also expressed that they are not interested in moving Bridges.

The four are the only current NBA players from the 2016-17 National Champion squad. Eric Paschall last played in 21-22.

Connecticut has agreed to a new six-year contract with men's basketball coach Dan Hurley, according to ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski.

Mike Anthony of CT Insider reported the deal is worth $31.5 million and noted Hurley becomes the highest-paid head coach in the state's history.

The agreement comes on the heels of the Huskies winning their fifth national championship.

Hurley inherited a difficult situation when he was hired ahead of the 2018-19 season.

UConn fell off a cliff shortly after winning a national title under Kevin Ollie, and Ollie's tenure ended in June 2018 amid concerns he committed NCAA violations. He eventually settled with the school in September after challenging whether he was fired for cause.

Leaving those circumstances aside, the Huskies missed the NCAA tournament and had a losing record in each of Ollie's final two seasons. The program was trending in the wrong direction and desperately needed to hire the right coach to avoid a more prolonged slide.

Hurley didn't trigger an immediate turnaround as UConn went 16-17 in 2018-19 and likely would've missed the Big Dance if the COVID-19 pandemic hadn't forced the cancellation of the NCAA tournament in 2019-20.

Still, the Huskies were making clear progress and finally got back to the tourney in 2021. The results continued to improve before culminating in this year's success. Whereas the 2014 title run was a false dawn in retrospect, Hurley has built a solid foundation at Connecticut that should yield consistent results.

A pay raise was inevitable considering his $2.6 million average salary ranked 45th in Division I, per USA Today. By now making nearly $5.3 million a year, he moves up to sixth on the list behind Auburn's Bruce Pearl.

Doubling his payout should ensure Hurley isn't tempted to bolt UConn for another premier college job or an NBA gig.

The UConn Huskies and Gonzaga Bulldogs are set to begin a multiyear men's college basketball series with a game at Seattle's Climate Pledge Arena in the 2023-24 season, according to Jon Rothstein of College Hoops Today.

The teams will also play at New York's Madison Square Garden in 2024-25, per Rothstein. Dates and times have not been determined.

UConn and Gonzaga most recently met in the Elite Eight of the 2023 NCAA tournament. The Huskies defeated the Bulldogs 82-54 to reach the Final Four for the first time in nine years.

UConn then captured its first national title since 2014.

The Huskies and Bulldogs have met only six times, and Connecticut is 4-2. Gonzaga defeated UConn in the Bahamas in 2015 and in Boston in 2007. UConn won a 2008 meeting in Seattle and a 2005 matchup in Hawaiʻi. The Huskies also won another Elite Eight matchup in 1999 on the way to their first national title.

Both programs will look very different next season.

Four Huskies declared for the 2023 NBA draft this offseason: Jordan Hawkins, Andre Jackson Jr., Tristen Newton and Adama Sanogo.

However, UConn brought in the country's fourth-ranked recruiting class, per 247Sports, including 5-star prospect Stephon Castle; 4-stars Solomon Ball, Jaylin Stewart and Jayden Ross; and 3-star Youssouf Singare.

According to ESPN's Jeff Borzello, the Huskies' projected starting lineup includes Castle, Ball, Stewart, Alex Karaban and Donovan Clingan.

Gonzaga, meanwhile, is entering the post-Drew Timme era, as he declared for the draft alongside teammates Malachi Smith, Julian Strawther and Anton Watson.

The Bulldogs' recruiting class ranked 22nd with 4-star Dusty Stromer and 3-star Alex Toohey.

Gonzaga also landed transfers in Graham Ike (Wyoming), Ryan Nembhard (Creighton) and Steele Venters (Eastern Washington).

Borzello projected its starting lineup to include Nembhard, Venters, Ike and Nolan Hickman. He also included Smith, who may return for his fifth season. Otherwise, Ben Gregg could slot in.

With the new-look rosters, the matchup between UConn and Gonzaga should be a good one.