The NBA Finals are set to begin tonight, where the two-seed San Antonio Spurs will host the three-seed New York Knicks. Each team has 15 active roster players, and out of these 30 players, six of them played college basketball in the Big East. The Big East has the most representation, followed by the SEC, which has five players in the finals. Then, the ACC and Big 12 are tied for the third most representation with four players each. Out of the six players representing the Big East, five of them are starters.
A Big East reunion In The NBA Finals
The Big East Breakdown
The Big East represents 20 percent of the NBA Finals. Out of the six players representing the conference, four of them play for the Knicks, and two of them play for the Spurs. Among the six Big East players in college, they won six national championships, had one Naismith player of the year award, two first-team All-Americans, two second-team All-Americans, and one third-team All-American. The only other conference represented in the NBA Finals that has an NCAA National Champion is the ACC, as Mason Plumlee won the 2010 National Championship with Duke.
Now, let’s look at the players representing the Big East. Yes, this list of six players is dominated by the Villanova Knicks, who currently all start for the Knicks, and all started for the Villanova Wildcats at points in their college careers. Josh Hart played for Villanova from the 2013-2014 season to the 2016-2017 season. At Nova, Hart won the National Championship in the 2015-2016 season, where Kris Jenkins gave us one of the most memorable shots in college basketball history. Hart then followed this up by winning the Big East player of the year and being a first-team All-American in the 2016-2017 season. He was also a four-time Big East Regular Season Champion and two-time Big East Tournament Champion.
Hart’s teammate Mikal Bridges played at Villanova from the 2015-2016 season to the 2017-2018 season. At Nova, Bridges won two National Championships, his second being in the 2017-2018 season. Bridges was a three-time Big East Regular Season Champion and won the Big East Tournament Championship in 2018. In 2018, Bridges was named a third-team All-American and won the Julius Erving award for the top small forward. The third member of this dominant team, Jalen Brunson, also played at Nova from the 2015-2016 season to the 2017-2018 season. On top of being a two-time National Champion, Brunson won the 2018 Naismith player of the year award and just about every other award that he was eligible to win in 2018.
The fourth Big East player on the Knicks is Tyler Kolek, who started his college career with the George Mason Patriots in the 2020-2021 season and played for the Marquette Golden Eagles for the next three seasons. In Kolek’s time at Marquette, he was a two-time second-team All-American, the Big East player of the year in 2023, and the NCAA’s assist leader in 2024. Now onto the two Big East representatives that play for the Spurs.
For the Spurs, we have Julian Champagnie, who played for the St. John’s Red Storm from the 2019-2020 season to the 2021-2022 season. In his college career, Champagnie led the Big East in scoring twice, was a two-time First-Team All-Big East, and was the Big East’s Most Improved Player for the 2020-2021 season. Stephon Castle rounds out the list, where he was a one-and-done player for the UConn Huskies in the 2023-2024 season. In his lone year with the Huskies, Castle won a National Championship, was a Big East Regular Season and Tournament Champion, won freshman of the year, and was on the Final Four all-tournament team.
We don’t know how this NBA Finals is going to play out. However, the one thing we know for sure about this NBA Finals is that a former Big East National Championship winner will also be crowned an NBA Champion.
NBA Finals Big East Representation
Knicks:
Hart (Starter) (Villanova)
Bridges (Starter) (Villanova)
Brunson (Starter) (Villanova)
Kolek (Reserve) (Marquette)
Spurs:
Champagnie (Starter) (St. John’s)
Castle (Starter) (UConn)
Featured Image: Wendell Cruz-Imagn Images
