I read this article today in the Wall Street Journal: Villanova's Unlikely Shot at NCAA Brilliance. Figured it was worth a share.

Villanova is the exact opposite of a team that should be alive this late in the season. In fact, if there were a list of what it takes to not win the national championship, the Wildcats would check basically every box.

They play in a conference that doesn’t play top-level football. They don’t have any obvious future NBA stars. They go down early in the NCAA tournament almost every year. Which is why more people in ESPN’s bracket contest picked No. 2 seed Villanova to lose in the first round than to win the whole thing.

Clearly Villanova now has the college basketball world's attention after curb-stomping OU by 44 points in the worst blowout in Final Four history.

A win over North Carolina on Monday wouldn’t only make Villanova the national champion. It would make Villanova’s unlikely case as a historically great NCAA tournament team.

...Villanova’s average margin of victory in the last five games is 24.2 points. Not a single national champion since the 1985 expansion has racked up wins by that many points before the title game, according to Stats LLC. It’s such a huge number that even a one-point win Monday would mean Villanova trailed only the 1996 Kentucky team with nine NBA players that was known as “The Untouchables.”

Their run through the tournament has been no joke, perhaps tougher than UK's in 2014.

Villanova has already knocked off the best team in college basketball (top overall seed Kansas) and the best player in college basketball (Oklahoma star Buddy Hield). They got here without getting a single break: Villanova was stuck with a No. 7 seed in the second round, a No. 3 seed in the Sweet Sixteen, a No. 1 seed in the Elite Eight and a No. 2 seed in the Final Four. Now they’re one of six teams in the last decade to play for the national title with a top-10 offense and defense.

Here's to Villanova knocking off the Tar Heels.  GO WILDCATS!