Sixteen points in the NCAA Tournament championship wasn’t enough — Ty Jerome had one last score to settle.
The Virginia star, two days after leading the Cavaliers to an 85-77 overtime victory over Texas Tech, remembered the non-believers. Notably, he remembered the Sports Pope.
As audio spread of Mike Francesa on Feb. 5 declaring that Virginia could not win the title, Jerome, from Iona Prep, hopped on to Francesa’s show, needling him throughout about a champion he could not envision.
It started subtly, Francesa asking why the New Rochelle native chose Virginia and Tony Bennett.
“Great coaching staff,” Jerome said, in audio from Francesa chronicler @BackAftaThis. “I know some would disagree, but I loved the coaching staff from Day 1.”
Francesa asked about an offense that played slowly but efficiently.
“Our offensive numbers, offensive efficiency I think we’re in top five in the country — we have been all year,” Jerome said. “I’m sure a lot of people don’t do their research of college basketball before they speak.”
Francesa, though he will not admit it, is among the many who tune in to the NCAA Tournament without watching much college basketball, then make broad statements on teams based on their coaches’ reputations. Thus, a month before the tournament, he buried a Bennett-coached team because traditionally, it has a strong defense and poor offense.
“Will never win a championship with this team,” he told a caller. “They can’t play offense. Here’s the bottom line: There’s gonna come a game in the tournament where they need to make a shot and get a shot and they can’t get it.”
The dramatic irony is poignant: Mamadi Diakite hit the shot of the tournament, and Jerome’s backcourt mate Kyle Guy hit the last-second free throws to beat Auburn.
“I don’t like them offensively at all,” Francesa said. “Will never win a championship with this team.”
A Wednesday caller brought up the incontrovertible proof that Francesa prematurely wrote Virginia off. In one breath, Francesa denied the undeniable; in the next, he seemingly accepted the truth with a shrug.
“That guy also changes stuff all the time,” Francesa said of @BackAftaThis, claiming his words, which are clear on video, were doctored. “When he wants to make something really juicy, he’ll make it up, too. Don’t always go by that like it’s real. They can edit things a million times on the internet.”
And yet Francesa also excused himself for being wrong.
“I can talk about 100 teams, only one’s gonna win,” he said. “If I make 99 right and make one wrong, the one that’s wrong is gonna come back to me and say, ‘You said this about my team.’ So last year when I said Virginia couldn’t win, did I hear from them?”
Of course, if Francesa said Virginia couldn’t win last year, no one heard it. He was away on retirement.