The short-lived full “Nova Knicks” group may not be playing together at Madison Square Garden, but the quartet will be on basketball fans’ screens together in March — as actors.
For a few short months in the 2024 NBA offseason, the New York Knicks‘ roster featured no fewer than four players who had previously played together with the Villanova Wildcats — Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart, Mikal Bridges and Donte DiVincenzo. Each of them spent their college careers on the Main Line, with all four members of the quartet overlapping on the Wildcats’ 2016-17 squad.
The Knicks’ trade for Karl-Anthony Towns in October sent DiVincenzo to the Minnesota Timberwolves, seemingly breaking up the group for good — a reality a new AT&T commercial for March Madness is poking fun at.
“Staying close with your college besties?” the advert’s narrator intones as DiVincenzo awkwardly stares down Brunson, Hart and Bridges in a stadium tunnel. “Not guaranteed.”
“I wish we played together, forever,” DiVincenzo thinks, as a memory of the group celebrating his birthday flashes by.
DiVincenzo starts to walk away, but Brunson tosses him a Villanova visor. DiVincenzo puts it on and smiles, as the narrator notes: “A connection means something.”
The commercial finishes with a clip of Brunson and DiVincenzo — among other Wildcats — celebrating in Villanova’s 71-59 2018 Elite Eight win over Texas Tech.
The Wildcats missed the men’s NCAA tournament this season but will play the Colorado Buffaloes in the newly minted College Basketball Crown tournament on April 1.
