CBS Sports: CB 1985- National Championship- Villanova Wildcats vs Georgetown Hoyas

Source:CBS Sports- Villanova Woildcats head coach Rollie Massinino. 

Source:The Daily Press

“Watch this complete national championship game from 1985, when one of the original Cinderella stories, Villanova, marched its way to the championship game against heavy favorite Georgetown. Villanova pulled off the upset with a 66-64 victory in the first year of the 64-team NCAA tournament format.” 

From March Madness 

The one basketball game that John Thompson would probably like to have back. The Georgetown Hoyas wee poised to win back-to-back national championships in 1985 having what clearly looked like the best team in the tournament, with the best player in center Patrick Ewing. Who I at least believe without the leg injuries from the early and mid 1990s I think we’re talking about the best two-way center of his generation. Who was a dominant offensive and defensive force. With his great size, strength and athletic ability. Who accomplished so much in his career with bad knees and never being able to play with another great player. And in many seasons being the only All Star on his team with the New York Knicks.

I’m a Georgetown Hoyas fan even though I’m not as big of a fan as I was when I was growing up and watched a lot of both NBA and college basketball back then. And even though the Hoyas lost this game this season still brings up great memories for me. Because it was a time when the Big East Conference was not only relevant, but it ruled college basketball. It had the same importance as the SEC has for football today.

You win the Big East back in the 1980s, or at least do very well and you’re probably a national title contender. Very similar with the ACC of the 1990s and 2000s. The Big East had the Hoyas, but they also had the Villanova Wildcats, but the St. Johns Redman, Syracuse Orangeman and later the Connecticut Huskies and Providence Friars. All very good and top-level basketball programs.

The Big East Conference was like the SEC for college football, what the ACC is fo college basketball today, what the NFC East has traditionally been for the NFL. That one division or conference where if you do well there, you’re having a very good season. You’ve accomplished something very important, because it means you’ve beaten a lot of good teams.

It also means that everybody you play in that division or conference will be gunning for you to take you down. Especially if they’re not having a good season. It was a conference again similar to the NFC East where you don’t have a rival, but you have several arch-rivals and it’s just a matter of which of those arch-rivals hates you the most in a sports sense.

I’m not taking anything away from the Villanova Wildcats here. They played a great game and beat a great team that had two of the best players in college basketball in 1985 on them in Pat Ewing and David Wyngate. Who both went on to have good NBA careers. Patrick of course being one of the top 5-10 centers of all-time. And the Wildcats are not just still the lowest seed to win the national championship, but they also beat the best team in college basketball that year. And had they played each other for the championship ten times, the Wildcats might not have won another game.

But what I’m saying here is that the Big East was so great back then having three teams in the 85 Final Four alone, that you had to very good just to get where the Wildcats got that season. In position to win the national championship.

Biography: 'Malcolm X - Civil Rights Activist'

Source:Biography with a look at Nation of Islam Minister Malcolm X.

Source:The Daily Press

"Malcolm X (May 19, 1925 to February 21, 1965) was a minister, human rights activist and prominent black nationalist leader who served as a spokesman for the Nation of Islam during the 1950s and 1960s. Due largely to his efforts, the Nation of Islam grew from a mere 400 members at the time he was released from prison in 1952 to 40,000 members by 1960. Articulate, passionate and a naturally gifted and inspirational orator, Malcolm X exhorted blacks to cast off the shackles of racism "by any means necessary," including violence. The fiery civil rights leader broke with the group shortly before his assassination on February 21, 1965, at the Audubon Ballroom in Manhattan, where he had been preparing to deliver a speech...

From Biography

This to me is what the whole message of  what "Black-Power"is about. What Minister Malcolm X was in favor of was, that African-Americans shouldn't sit around and expect other people to give them their freedom and constitutional rights that they are already supposed to have under law, just for being native-born American citizens. But that they should go take what is there's and build their own communities and create their own wealth. And not be dependent on others government or otherwise for them to be able to survive. He was talking about educating an entire community in America to stand up for what is rightfully there's.

Minister Malcolm didn't want African-Americans  to sit around and wait for someone to give it to them. That instead they need to get educated and be able to create their own wealth and create their own power and build their own communities, their own business's, own schools, hospitals and so-forth and not be dependent on others to take care of them. Which is very different from Dr. Martin L. King who was talking about the welfare state and redistribution of wealth. Malcolm X, didn't want Caucasians to give him and his community anything, other than privacy and be able to live independently.

As much as today's so-called Progressives (militant Socialists in actuality) claim to support Malcolm X and be behind him, they don't get the man. They see Malcolm as some type of Fidel Castro taking on the man (meaning the White man) rebel. And that was part of his message, at least early on. But Minister Malcolm wasn't a Socialist and he sure as hell wasn't a Communist. He didn't expect or want government to give his community money. 

Minister X wanted his community to empower themselves, get their education, raise their kids, father's to stay home and not abandon their children, build their own business's and create their own wealth. He was a Classical Liberal (the real Liberals) or Conservative when it came to economic policy. And someone who deserves a lot of respect for that.