NCAA Tournament

Nike executives allegedly discussed plans to pay NBA players Zion Williamson and Romeo Langford while they were still in high school, according to federal court documents obtained by Yahoo Sports' Pat Forde, Pete Thamel and Dan Wetzel.

Furthermore, Nike execs allegedly wrote about payments made to people in Phoenix Suns center Deandre Ayton's inner circle during the big man's high school days. 

Per the Yahoo report, "a series of text messages from February 2017 between [Nike Elite Youth Basketball League director Carlton DeBose], Nike recruiting coordinator John Stovall and Nike EYBL manager Jamal James [concerned] a plan to potentially pay three players—Williamson, Langford and a player from Michigan whose name is redacted because he is still a minor. All three were still in high school, or younger, at the time."

The documents also cover an email allegedly sent by Mel McDonald, described as a "handler" for Ayton, to DeBose that "appears to detail money spent on Ayton and people affiliated with him, including $65,840 in expenses for cellphone, travel, and immigration costs. Per Yahoo Sports, "it is unclear whether McDonald was seeking reimbursement for those expenses."

The McDonald email also contains a list of what the Yahoo report called "apparent payouts" to those close to Ayton, such as $5,000 for Christmas gifts and $3,000 for cellphones.

Lawyer Michael Avenatti produced the documents in court as part of his ongoing legal battle with the apparel and shoe company.

Avenatti was arrested on extortion charges in March. The lawyer allegedly was attempting to extort $25 million from Nike.

Per Yahoo Sports, "prosecutors allege he tried to 'shake down' Nike by demanding they hire him to run an internal investigation of the EYBL or he would reveal incriminating details of the payouts."

The payments regarding Williamson, Langford and a minor from Michigan were revealed in a group text from James to DeBose. James asked if they would be "willing to do...whatever may be needed for the Zion/Romeo situations as well as the money we're now going to do for the [minor] kid in Michigan."

Stovall responded with the following numbers (exact denominations unknown) for each: Langford (20), Zion (35-plus), Minor (15). He also wrote that an unspecified middle man had "still not presented our new offer" to Williamson.

"Only hinted at it," Stovall wrote. "He did not want to put it in print which I agreed with."

As for Ayton, the alleged payment number may have been larger than what originally appeared in an email between McDonald and DeBose. Of note, Avenatti "released documents alleging that Nike made $83,000 in payments to people affiliated with Ayton."

Williamson eventually played for Duke during the 2018-19 season and won the men's Naismith College Player of the Year award before the New Orleans Pelicans took him first in the 2019 NBA draft. He signed an endorsement deal with Nike's Jordan Brand.

Langford played at Indiana for one season and was named a second-team All-Big Ten member. The Boston Celtics drafted him 14th overall, and he is signed with Adidas.

Ayton played at Arizona and was a consensus first-team All-American during his lone year in school. The Suns took him first overall in the 2018 draft, and he is signed with Nike.

MINNEAPOLIS — Kyle Guy kept tugging on the brim of his hat, as if he wanted to make sure he was really wearing it. He found teammate Ty Jerome on the confetti-covered court, and they put their arms around each other. With Jerome by his side, Guy took his hat off and read those golden letters again: 2019 NCAA MEN'S BASKETBALL NATIONAL CHAMPIONS. He looked at the Virginia logo right beneath those words and smiled in disbelief. He shook his head and then put the hat right back where it belonged.

The junior from Indianapolis moved through the next few moments, the stuff of dreams, as if he were sleepwalking. He climbed the on-court dais with his teammates and, when asked, told CBS' Jim Nantz how much he respects Texas Tech's program. He told Westwood One radio how proud he was of his teammates. He didn't even seem to notice when the Final Four all-tournament team was announced and he was named the Final Four's Most Outstanding Player, an honor he capped with 24 points and four three-pointers in the final. His teammates called him to climb the ladder and cut his piece of the net. Having completed the task, he pumped his fist three times to the Virginia faithful who had stayed until almost midnight to celebrate Virginia's 85-77 overtime win over Texas Tech and a long-awaited national title.

If anyone could be the living embodiment of what Virginia has been through the last year, it was Guy.

Last spring, after Virginia lost to No. 16 seed UMBC in the opening round, he had buried his face in his hands at the buzzer and choked back tears during postgame interviews—interviews he had only agreed to do so that the seniors on the team, the ones who wouldn't be able to avenge the loss, wouldn't have to end their careers in public humiliation. 

The next day, he returned to campus with his head hung low and his hoodie on. His fiancee, Alexa Jenkins, skipped a week of classes at DePauw University to be with him. He spent the next week talking to her until he ran out of words. "When you're going through something like that, you have to keep talking and keep talking until it doesn't hurt as much anymore," she said. "I let him talk until he didn't need to talk anymore."

Monday night, it was Alexa who was on the brink of tears.

Moments after watching the "One Shining Moment" montage with his teammates back on the dais, Guy wiped the confetti from his hands like sand at the beach and found Alexa. He put his arm around her and held her hand before sprinting back to the locker room. As she watched him run away, her left arm half out of her hoodie from where he'd held her, she ran through the emotions of the last year. "I don't know how to explain it," she said. "He was beaten down [last year]. Really discouraged. But it doesn't matter anymore now, does it?"

Guy eventually came to embrace Virginia's historic loss, the first by a men's No. 1 seed to a No. 16 seed. He changed his Twitter avatar to a shot of his hands on his knees while UMBC players in the background celebrated. He changed his phone's background to another shot from that night. He wrote letters to himself on his laptop. He watched Will Smith motivational videos and TED Talks. And he reread The Alchemist, a book he'd first come across before the UMBC game but which came to mean something so much more after it. He wanted to redeem the win with this championship, but more than that, he wanted the loss to stay with him as a reminder that every experience is an opportunity to become a better person.

"I try to use every single experience I've been through to help me through hard times or good times or any times," he said now. "I think that UMBC is the greatest life lesson I've ever learned."

Without that loss, he wasn't sure he would have come up with the courage to reveal publicly that he had long struggled with anxiety, something he did before this tournament by posting a pair of letters he'd written to himself before and after that game. And without the loss, he wasn't sure that these Cavaliers would have had the resolve to make this NCAA tournament run.

Against Gardner-Webb in the first round, they trailed by as many as 14 points before bouncing back for a 15-point victory. They beat Oklahoma by 12 and Oregon by four. And then, the true tests came. They trailed Purdue by three with five seconds left and won in overtime. They trailed Auburn by four with 17 seconds left and won in regulation thanks to three clutch free throws from Guy. And they trailed Texas Tech by three with 12 seconds left but still took home the title in overtime.

"Every time that we were down or the momentum was changing," Guy said, "I could just feel in my heart and in my head that this wasn't how it ended. I think a lot of the team felt the same way—that we were going to find a way to win no matter what."

After the win over Texas Tech, Cavaliers head coach Tony Bennett described the UMBC loss as a scar that doesn't go away completely. "Is the pain gone?" he asked. "I still feel a little 'eh,' because I remember that feeling. But I think we're OK." Guy went even further. Earlier this week, he said that even a national championship couldn't change the fact that the UMBC loss was the best thing that had ever happened to him, besides getting engaged to Alexa.

On his way out of the stadium, with his duffel bag slung over his shoulder and the piece of net sticking out of his hat, he's asked to re-rank those life experiences in light of what he's just accomplished. "The best things ever to happen to me?" he asked. "No. 1 is getting engaged, and it's not even close. No. 2 is UMBC. And No. 3 is the national championship.

"All year, we kept saying, 'If we use this adversity right, it would buy us a ticket to a place we couldn't have gone any other way.' Without that loss, maybe we don't win the championship."

Guy's work in this stadium was almost done. He turned the corner toward the loading dock and walked toward the charter bus. He threw his bag in and began to walk around the front to climb aboard on the other side. And then he noticed something and stopped mid-stride. The bus had already gotten a new custom wrapping that read 2019 NATIONAL CHAMPIONS right after the Virginia logo. He took a photo with his phone and lingered for a second longer, just staring at the words. More than anyone, Kyle Guy knew what it took to make those words a reality.

It was a night to remember in Charlottesville, Virginia, as the Virginia Cavaliers men's basketball team won its first-ever national championship on Monday. 

While the Cavaliers captured an 85-77 overtime victory over the Texas Tech Red Raiders in Minneapolis, fans on the campus back home were more than ready to celebrate:

That was just the start of a special night.

The celebration spilled onto the streets and lasted well into the wee hours of Tuesday morning:

What a difference a year makes, as this comes after Virginia became the first top-seeded squad to lose to a 16 seed in 2018.

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The 2019 NCAA men's tournament finished with the No. 1 Virginia Cavaliers earning their program's first title over No. 3 Texas Tech at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis on Monday night.

With the title game fresh on people's minds, it's time to remind everyone of all the stellar individual performances from March 19 to now with the annual "One Shining Moment" montage.

Headlining is Purdue junior guard Carsen Edwards, who scored 139 points in just four games and placed himself in Stephen Curry territory before the Boilermakers were ousted by Virginia in the Elite Eight. His 28 three-pointers across those games set a new NCAA tournament record.

Speaking of three-point records: Wofford senior guard Fletcher Magee set the men's Division I record for most made career three-pointers in Wofford's first-round win over Seton Hall.

As for single-game performances, Murray State sophomore guard Ja Morant exploded for a 17-16-11 triple-double in the Racers' first-round upset of Marquette.

Projected No. 1 overall NBA draft pick Zion Williamson is spliced throughout the highlight reel, which is fitting considering the Duke freshman forward established himself as a human highlight reel and was named Naismith Player of the Year.

The video ends the same way this season did, with Virginia head coach Tony Bennett celebrating the Cavaliers' first-ever men's championship.

One year ago, the Virginia Cavaliers were the first No. 1 seed to lose to a No. 16 seed in the NCAA tournament. Now, they're champions for the first time in men's program history.

Virginia defeated the Texas Tech Red Raiders 85-77 in Monday's 2019 NCAA men's basketball national championship game.

With 12.9 seconds left in regulation, De'Andre Hunter hit a three-pointer to tie the game at 68 and send it to overtime. Hunter stepped up big again in overtime, connecting from long range to put Virginia ahead 75-73 with 2:10 remaining.

From there, Virginia pulled away. Braxton Key put an exclamation point on the victory with a breakaway two-handed jam.

Given what they went through in 2018, the Cavaliers players were understandably emotional after the final buzzer.

The reaction wasn't limited to Minneapolis.

Ty Jerome finished with 16 points, eight assists and six rebounds. The junior guard sought out some of his family members in the stands when the game ended.

Hunter led all scorers with 27 points, adding nine rebounds to an excellent all-around effort. He definitely earned the piece of the net he saved from U.S. Bank Stadium.

Kyle Guy took home Final Four's Most Outstanding Player honors. He had 24 points and three rebounds on Monday night and also sank the decisive free throws in Virginia's semifinal win over the Auburn Tigers. The images from the last two tournaments certainly presented a stark contrast for Guy.

CBS Sports shared Tony Bennett's postgame comments. The Virginia head coach recounted how he drew inspiration from the movie Rocky and used the film as a source of motivation for his players. Bennett also put the finishing touches on the 2019 tournament bracket, placing Virginia's sticker in the space reserved for the national champion.

Beyond just the sting of last year's opening-round loss to the UMBC Retrievers, Bennett has faced numerous questions about whether his defense-first approach was holding back the Cavaliers in the tournament. Despite enjoying a lot of success in the regular season, Virginia had just one Elite Eight appearance in Bennett's first nine seasons.

This title is an emphatic statement as to Bennett's tactical acumen.

And with only one senior (Jack Salt) on the roster, Virginia might be right back in the Final Four in 2020.

The Virginia Cavaliers were a national punchline on March 16, 2018.

They became national champions on April 8, 2019.

A season after becoming the first No. 1 seed to lose to a No. 16 in the history of the NCAA men's basketball tournament, Virginia won the national title on Monday with an 85-77 overtime victory over the Texas Tech Red Raiders at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis.

The trio of De'Andre Hunter (27 points and seven boards), Kyle Guy (24 points) and Ty Jerome (16 points, nine assists and eight rebounds) led the Cavaliers to their first national championship in program history. Hunter saved the game with a three-pointer with 12 seconds left in regulation to tie the score and hit the three in overtime that put his team ahead for good.

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The Red Raiders fell one win short of their first title despite a balanced offensive attack with five players in double figures, including Jarrett Culver (15 points, nine rebounds and six assists), Davide Moretti (15 points) and Brandone Francis (17 points).

For all the worries about slow pace, defensive struggles and poor shooting coming into the game, college basketball fans could not have asked for a more memorable stretch to end regulation.

Virginia went up four with less than two minutes remaining behind Hunter's jumper and Guy's layup, but Moretti answered with a three to cut the deficit to one. Culver gave his team the lead in the lane after a Norense Odiase block and tussle for a loose ball between the Texas Tech star and Guy, and the Red Raiders were on the verge of cutting down the nets after two Odiase free throws extended the advantage to three.

However, Hunter drilled the game-tying three and grabbed the rebound that would have forced overtime had he not thrown it out of bounds when Guy was motioning for a timeout. Fortunately for the ultimate hero, he avoided Chris Webber-like infamy when Braxton Key blocked Culver's potential game-winner at the buzzer.

The Cavaliers then took over in the extra period and secured their fate as program legends.

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The 162 combined points stand out considering the primary storyline entering play was defense, with Texas Tech No. 1 and Virginia No. 5 in KenPom's pace-adjusted rankings. It appeared as if a slugfest would break out when the Red Raiders needed more than seven minutes to score their first field goal.

It was a credit to Virginia's ability to swarm ball-handlers, throw off offensive sets, contest every jumper and protect the rim with length and athleticism that the Big 12 representative struggled out of the gates, and the Cavaliers' glacial pace made it seem as if they would gradually pull away.

After all, Texas Tech's previous largest deficit in the entire tournament was just five points, and it looked to be pressing when it fell behind by double digits in the first half.

The Red Raiders needed someone to make plays, but Culver—the best NBA prospect in the contest who Bleacher Report's Jonathan Wasserman projected as the No. 4 pick—missed all six of his field-goal attempts in the first half as he was swarmed by Hunter and was 5-of-22 for the game.

Enter Francis, who provided a critical spark off the bench with multiple threes and rebounding. The outside shooting from him and Moretti, as well as a dunk and timely boards from Tariq Owens, was enough for Texas Tech to storm back and take the lead.

That Owens was even playing was a testament to his toughness, as Scott Gleeson of USA Today noted he suffered a high ankle sprain during Saturday's win over Michigan State and was in a walking boot leading up to Monday's contest.

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Like Texas Tech, Virginia needed others outside its potential lottery pick to survive a run from the opponent. Hunter made a mere one field goal in the first half, but Jerome's buzzer-beater gave the ACC school the lead at intermission after Guy helped weather the storm with his veteran leadership and shooting.

The two sides started trading blows out of the locker rooms with Guy operating the Virginia offense with the smooth calmness that helped him maintain his composure when he drilled three free throws with 0.6 seconds left on Saturday to defeat Auburn.

As if that wasn't enough, Jerome stuffed the stat sheet and had just one turnover despite serving as a primary ball-handler against the nation's best defense.

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The missing piece for stretches was Hunter's shooting, but Texas Tech remained within striking distance even when he finally found his stroke from deep. That was largely because Culver sensed the urgency of the moment and started attacking the basket instead of settling for jumpers, which helped him facilitate down the stretch.

Still, the combination of Hunter, Jerome and Guy was too much with the game on the line, just like it was all season for the new national champions.

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Jarrett Culver has been the Texas Tech Red Raiders' best player all season, and the sophomore guard stepped up in a critical moment of Monday's NCAA men's basketball national championship at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis.

With Tech trailing the Virginia Cavaliers 65-64, Culver spun around De'Andre Hunter and sank a left-handed layup with 35.1 seconds remaining.

Despite Culver's heroics, the Red Raiders couldn't hold their led and went into overtime against Virginia.