Nova Knicks: How Brunson, Bridges, and Hart won NCAA and NBA Titles together

Knicks superstar Jalen Brunson walked off the floor in San Antonio holding the Bill Russell Trophy, and two of the teammates standing closest to him had been there for the first ring, too. Brunson, Mikal Bridges, and Josh Hart won a national championship at Villanova in 2016. A decade later, the three of them ended the longest title drought in the NBA.

The Knicks beat the Spurs 94-90 in Game 5 to close out the series in five and capture their first championship since 1973. It is the franchise’s third title overall, and the men most responsible for it shared a college locker room before any of them had played an NBA minute.

A first that took ten years to finish

Brunson, Bridges, and Hart are the first trio of teammates to win both an NCAA title and an NBA championship together, per NBA.com. Pairs had done it before. Three players from the same college roster reuniting to win it all in the pros had not happened until this group did it in New York.

The timeline stretches across a full decade. Villanova beat North Carolina for the 2016 national title with all three on the roster, and Brunson and Bridges added a second ring in 2018 after Hart had moved on, according to NCAA.org. Ten years separated the 2016 college banner from the 2026 NBA banner, with the same three names on both.

Brunson finished the way he always has

Brunson averaged 32.6 points, 4.6 assists and 4.2 rebounds across the Finals and saved his loudest game for last, dropping a Knicks Finals-record 45 points in the Game 5 clincher to earn Finals MVP. The undersized guard who was a second-round pick out of Villanova in 2018 is now the centerpiece of a New York champion. We laid out his MVP case in real time during the series, and he answered it.

The supporting Villanova cast did its part down the stretch. Bridges scored 14, and Hart added 13 in Game 5, with the two of them combining for 27 points in the close-out win. Three guys who learned to win together in college closed the biggest game of their lives the same way.

The Knicks built this on purpose

New York did not stumble into this roster. The front office traded for Bridges to reunite him with Brunson, and Hart had already arrived to complete the Villanova thread. The bet was that the chemistry three players forged, winning a National Championship, would translate when the stakes climbed. It did, and it ended a wait that had defined the franchise for half a century, the banner that turned the Knicks’ strangest gamble into a title.

For a generation of Knicks fans who never saw the team hold up a trophy, the faces delivering it could not have been more fitting. Brunson, Bridges, and Hart chased this exact feeling once before, in a college gym, as kids. They grew up and brought it to New York.

By Anthony Rivardo

Anthony Rivardo is the COO of Empire Sports Media and the host of Fireside Giants, a New York Giants ... More about Anthony Rivardo