NEW ORLEANS -- Despite arriving as the only No. 1 seed in the Final Four, Bill Self's pursuit of his second national championship had been tucked into the corner of a national semifinals that had minimized the weekend's opening act and any storylines attached to it.
And even if the chatter about Duke and North Carolina meeting for the first time in the NCAA tournament in Mike Krzyzewski's final season had demanded most of the pageantry in New Orleans, Villanova head coach Jay Wright's attempt to win his second national title without injured star Justin Moore had made the Wildcats an underdog that the masses could support.