NCAA championship 2018: In a wink, super sub Donte DiVincenzo gets Villanova another title
April 3, 2018 by admin
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SAN ANTONIO — The moment that made Villanova guard Donte DiVincenzo into an NCAA Tournament folk hero did not develop during any of the 18 points he scored in the first half of the 2018 championship game. It did not arrive when he split a second-half double-team near the top of the key with a reverse dribble that would have made James Harden weep. It came in a wink, just a few seconds after the Michigan Wolverines dared to suggest their chances of winning had not yet expired.
UM wing Charles Matthews converted a layup with 9:09 remaining to cut a deficit that once stood at 18 points to an even dozen. The game still felt very much like it belonged to the Wildcats, but the Michigan fans got to their feet and the Wolverines on the floor waved to encourage more noise. We’ve seen crazier NCAA comebacks, right?
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Well, sure, except none of them came against DiVincenzo. He advanced the ball, walked into his shooting range, got an annoying little rub screen from big man Omari Spellman that distracted Michigan point guard Zavier Simpson and popped in the 25-foot 3-pointer that declared: I’m the best player tonight, we are the best team, and if you want to get out of the parking lot early you now have that luxury.
Oh, and he punctuated that by winking at former Wildcats All-American Josh Hart, sitting beyond press row among the Villanova crowd.
And DiVincenzo winked again after another long trey 52 seconds later, just like the first, except that he’d already declared the game over by that point. Officially, it was in a little less than eight minutes, and the Wildcats had a 79-62 victory that delivered their second NCAA championship in three years.
“Honestly, I didn’t look at the score at all,” DiVincenzo told Sporting News. “I didn’t know how many points I had, I didn’t know any of that. I was just trying to make the right play. Omari was setting unbelievable screens for me, getting me open. And I was just feeling it.”
This will all seem a bit absurd, perhaps a fluke, to those who’d missed the joy of partaking earlier in the Wildcats’ season. A guy comes off the bench to score 31 points, the first player to hit that number in the championship game in nearly three decades? What is that?
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That is Villanova basketball. That is this team. This wasn’t even the first time in this NCAA Tournament that DiVincenzo bailed out his laboring teammates with an 18-point first half; he did it in the second round against Alabama when All-American Jalen Brunson and Spellman both picked up a couple early fouls and coach Jay Wright used them cautiously until the break.
“Honestly, this is nothing special,” Brunson said, then quickly caught himself after realizing his linguistic choices had just diminished a performance that made his good friend the Final Four’s Most Outstanding Player. “Excuse me. This is very special. This is nothing surprising for us. We’ve seen Donte do this multiple times this year.
“I’m just so thankful he was able to have one of these nights tonight. It shows how much depth we have as a team and just don’t care who gets the credit. If someone is hot, feed him.”
At the five-minute mark of the first half, Villanova was leading by a single point and Michigan’s terrific defense had isolated the Wildcats from one another, making them almost entirely into an isolation team. That was the UM gameplan, to occasionally trap off ball screens but to avoid the overhelping that often fueled Nova’s 3-point explosions. Then DiVincenzo scored seven consecutive points, including a layup, a 3-pointer and a dunk, and by halftime his team was ahead by nine.
“Anytime you get into a rhythm like that, where you can pull up from anywhere and just knock them down, it’s tough to stop,” said Michigan guard Muhammad-Ali Abdur-Rahkman. “You’re always on your heels defensively, because you never know what he’s going to do — either shoot, pull up and shoot the 3 or drive to the basket. It’s tough when you see shots go in like that for him.”
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A 6-5 redshirt sophomore from Wilmington, Del. — he was a spectator for the 2016 championship because of a broken foot — DiVincenzo was the team’s third-leading scorer this season and played the fourth-most minutes though he rarely started. He instead came off the bench behind redshirt junior Phil Booth. Only when Booth broke his hand in late January did DiVincenzo open games regularly.
He acknowledged it was difficult to not be in the lineup early in the season. “I had to grow up a lot this year,” he said, but ultimately, he trusted Wright to put him in the best situation to excel.
“We want our players to have a clear mind,” Wright said. “We want them to be able to go out there and play and not worry about that they’re coming off the bench or they’re not getting enough shots or they’re going to leave early for the NBA. We really feel like to be a good basketball player, you have to have a clear mind.
“Donte competed for a starting position this year. He worked really hard and he wanted to start. And he initially a little upset that he wasn’t starting. A little. Not bad, because he’s a great kid. But we spent a lot of time talking when him — not to appease him, but to make sure that his mind was clear.
“I actually heard my assistants on the bench, when he was starting to go off, I heard them saying: This is great for him. He deserves this. Because he really did.”
That freshman year was not easy, sitting for all but eight games because of the injury. He entered the rotation last season when Booth injured his knee and was lost for the year, and DiVincenzo rapidly built a reputation for spectacular athleticism and a developing knack for hitting 3-pointers.
WATCH: Villanova fans are jumping over fire in Philadelphia streets to celebrate title
DiVincenzo told SN he winked at Hart because of a connection he felt from having been worked so many times in practice by a player who was a national champion in 2016, an All-American in 2017 and now is a rookie with the Los Angeles Lakers in 2018.
“A lot of failure in practice — Josh every single day last year just beat me up physically,” DiVincenzo said. “Having to guard Jalen, having to guard Eric and Omari, just taught me so much in my ability to now defend so many different positions. All credit to them, just beating me up every day in practice.”
Although he was the star of the game, he remained on the court until the end because Wright was so busy clearing the court of Villanova veterans. That gave DiVincenzo the opportunity to heave the ball toward the stadium ceiling as he was mobbed by teammates.
He smiled broadly as they enveloped him, but after a platform was constructed on the floor for the trophy presentation, he began to cry while waiting for that moment.
“I blame Jalen, honestly. I was fine at the end of the game, and then he came up to me and he was crying. He was bawling his eyes out,” DiVincenzo told SN. “Me and him are brothers. We roomed together our freshman year, and we said to each other after that, we said: We need to get back. We need to get back there and we need to share this together. And we took advantage of it.”
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Brunson recalled the first time he met the player some call — with a wink, perhaps — “the Michael Jordan of Delaware.” They were in an airport after an AAU tournament, after DiVincenzo had committed to join the Wildcats.
“Donte came up to me and said, ‘What’s up? What’s up? Come to Nova,’” Brunson said. “And I looked at him and said, ‘Oh, yeah — hell, no.’ I knew he was a great player and I thought there was no reason for me to go there. Looking at it now, it was stupid of me to say. From that point on, I met a best friend. I met a guy who I’ll know for a very long time, and our relationship is going to be so special because of what we’ve done together.”
If DiVincenzo brags on his MOP award during that future, Brunson can bring out his player of the year trophies: SN, Associated Press, Naismith, Oscar Robertson.
“No,” Brunson said. “I’ll just say I played in two national title games instead of one.”
DiVincenzo’s one, though, was better than most.
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Looming China Trade Action Divides Industry and Roils Markets
April 3, 2018 by admin
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Josh Kallmer, the senior vice president for global policy at the Information Technology Industry Council, an advocate for companies like Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft and IBM, said his group had been largely supportive of the administration’s targeting of China’s unfair trade practices. But the group had made it clear to the White House that it would not be pleased with any measure that had tariffs “as the primary or even a significant remedy.”
“The reason is that it would be a tax on consumers,” Mr. Kallmer said, “precisely the people we are trying to support.”
Many of the trade measures that Mr. Trump has proposed, including the steel and aluminum tariffs, have divided his advisers, the business community and the Republican Party. But the White House has boasted that its targeting of China’s trade practices has broad support from industries on the losing end of the Chinese approach.
That theory could make it more difficult for American companies to operate in a country that already puts up steep barriers.
American companies and business groups have frequently complained that China blocks off valuable markets from American competition, including technology, media and finance, and that it does so in violation of commitments it made when it joined the World Trade Organization in 2001. China has imposed regulations that require American companies to share their technology with Chinese partners, for example, mandating that foreign companies operate through joint ventures if they want access to Chinese consumers. At times, the Chinese have resorted to stealing vital technologies through cyberwarfare, according to United States authorities.
Late last month, the White House said it would crack down on that behavior, outlining a series of actions aimed at punishing China for its trade barriers.
As Mr. Trump advances a series of tough trade measures to confront these behaviors, however, cracks have appeared in American industry’s seemingly united front.
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Companies in technology, investment and other industries now say that the measures the administration is taking to help them may actually end up doing irreparable harm to supply chains they have built up over decades. Any American company that wants to be a global player cannot afford to lose access to China’s growing market, executives say.
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Technology companies argue that the restrictive measures the administration is taking to help protect them could end up penalizing American manufacturing, raising costs and making their companies less competitive globally. And industries most vulnerable to retaliation, like agriculture, are protesting about losing valuable export opportunities. While the Chinese did not target soybeans in their initial tariffs list, many in the soybean industry worry they will be penalized in a trade dispute given China’s importance as a market for exports.
The 25 percent tariff on pork that China imposed on Monday is expected to be particularly harmful, including in regions that supported the president, like Iowa, North Carolina and Indiana. Last year, American farmers sent more than a billion dollars’ worth of pork to China, their largest export market by value after Japan and Mexico.
“Because we’re so blessed to have America feed the world, we’re also the first industry to get slammed whenever there are trade difficulties between the U.S. and other countries,” Denise Bode, the coordinator for the American Fruit and Vegetable Processors and Growers Coalition.
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“American farmers appear to be the first casualties of an escalating trade war,” said Max Baucus, a former Democratic senator from Montana and a chairman of a group called Farmers for Free Trade. “With farm incomes already declining, farmers rely on export markets to stay above water. These new tariffs are a drag on their ability to make ends meet.”
Since Mr. Trump announced the China measures on March 22, American officials, including Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and the United States trade representative, Robert Lighthizer, have been in talks with the Chinese about ways to resolve their differences. The sides have discussed concessions like reducing China’s tariffs on American cars, opening up its market for financial services and purchasing more semiconductors or natural gas, people familiar with the talks said.
However, analysts and companies involved in China said that these measures appeared unlikely to adequately resolve American concerns about China’s longstanding encroachment on American intellectual property.
Companies are waiting anxiously for the administration to release a list of Chinese products this week that will be subject to tariffs — most likely the kind of high-tech products that the administration has accused China of targeting. The retail industry, which lobbied the administration and Congress against an early plan to impose tariffs on Chinese-made apparel and footwear, is now cautiously optimistic that its products will be exempt.
Restrictions on Chinese investment are expected to follow in the coming weeks. Administration officials have said those rules will aim to restore reciprocity with the Chinese, though it is not clear if the United States will go so far as to bar Chinese companies from investing in the same industries that China restricts. The White House is also considering the use of an emergency economy powers act that could allow it to restrict Chinese investments.
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The measures come on top of proposed legislation in Congress to expand the authority of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which reviews foreign deals for national security concerns. Last month, the committee stalled a hostile takeover of Qualcomm, a California-based chip maker, by a Singapore company, largely over concerns about ceding semiconductor prowess to China.
G.E. and IBM, which operate through joint ventures and other partnerships in China and around the world, have both lobbied against the expansion of Cfius over concerns that restrictions on joint ventures with foreign companies that include the transfer of valuable skills or technology could weaken the position of American companies abroad.
Financial firms, including Goldman Sachs and the Carlyle Group, have also expressed concern about investment restrictions, saying they could provide a drag on the United States economy.
White House advisers, in turn, have complained that previous approaches to dealing with China have not worked, and that companies are overreacting to legitimate trade measures.
Speaking Monday on CNBC, the White House trade adviser, Peter Navarro, defended the administration’s tough actions on China and said investors should not fear a trade war.
“Everybody needs to relax,” Mr. Navarro said. “The economy is as strong as an ox.”
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