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VILLANOVA, Pa. -- Bang.Jay Wright calmly mouthed one word when Kris Jenkins hit the 3-pointer at the buzzer that won Villanova a national championship. The Wildcats returned home the next day for a pep rally at the campus football stadium, and their celebratory victory tour has barely slowed down since April.The White House. Wall Street. The ESPYs. The ticker tape parade. The Philadelphia professional sports teams feted the Wildcats with first pitch, first puck, first tip fun. Wright delivered a pep talk to the Eagles. Basketball and Basilica in Spain. Whats the next chapter? Read all about it in Wrights upcoming book, Attitude.Wright sat down with The Associated Press to talk about his favorite moments from a summer where the Wildcats reigned as the national champions. Here are some of his memories from what Wright called, a wild offseason. Wild. And great.---HAIL TO THE CHAMPSPresident Barack Obama welcomed Villanova in May to the White House and congratulated the Wildcats for winning what he described as maybe the best title game of all time.Waiting to be introduced, Wright chitchatted with Obama where the two discussed, well, basketball, of course. Obamas brother-in-law is former college hoops player and Oregon State coach Craig Robinson and the president fills out an NCAA Tournament bracket every year. He even picked the Wildcats to win the national championship in 2015 (and lost).He really knows our business, really knows it well, Wright said. Its funny to hear the president of the United States say how difficult a job we have. And youre hearing it from the president! But we had a really insightful conversation about college coaching that was awesome to me.---`CATS & BIRDS:Wright was invited by the Philadelphia Eagles to give a private pep talk to coaches and players in June.It was all about just being loyal to each other, the Eagles, the coaches and players. Theyre my favorite team, Wright said. I had met (coach) Doug Pederson because of (former coach) Andy Reid and I was friends with Andy.I would say the talk with the President was first and then the Eagles, that was really cool.---EMPTY HANDEDWright was in Washington for a leadership summit at the Pentagon when he met Los Angeles Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw back in 2014. Kershaw was in town to face the Nationals and the two bumped into each other at the Ritz.Kershaw was excited to reunite with Wright two years later on the red carpet for the ESPYs .He was like, `I want to take a picture with the ring. Ive got to get one of those, I dont have one of those, Wright said, laughing.Kershaw then threw Wright a curve -- that the Wildcats werent going to win any awards.He said, `Did you win? Wright said. I was like, well, we were nominated for three. As he said it, I realized, we would know if we won. He kind of started backing off. `No, no, no. I just remember last year I was up for one and the guy who won knew he won. It hit me before we went in there, we probably didnt win. We would have known if we won.---MOVING ONThe Wildcats stamped their passports for an eight-day tour of Spain that included three exhibition games against Spanish Select teams . The Wildcats toured Barcelona and Madrid in relative anonymity and avoided mobs of autograph seekers.Little known fact, Villanova is named for a Spanish Augustinian, Thomas Garc?a (1486-1555), the son of a miller who was born in Fuenllana, a village near Villanueva de los Infantes, Castile, Spain.Known fact, fans know who the Wildcats are in Philadelphia.We got back and people started taking pictures of us again, Wright said. It smacked us right in the face. In Spain, no one knew us. No one bothered us. But we got smacked in the face waiting for our bags. Everybody started asking for pictures because we were all together. It was all just a smack in the face of reality.---INSTANT REPLAYWright has watched a replay of the national championship game twice. He watched it with a coachs eye on the plane ride back from Houston and one more time with his family just days after the championship parade in Philadelphia.We listened to timeouts, we listened to Raff and Jim Nantz and Grant Hill, he said. We tried to get a feel for what people really saw and listened to. It took us like, three hours to watch the game. We kept rewinding stuff. We had a lot of fun with it. That was it. That was the last time.But video of Jenkins shot is on a continuous loop plays in the lobby of Villanovas basketball complex -- and the fun hasnt ended yet.Its been everything, Wright said. But we started practice on Friday and I kind of feel like officially, its over. Cheap Vapormax Uk . But Bourque, who has missed three games with a lower-body injury, wont be in the lineup when the Habs travel to Buffalo to take on the Sabres on Wednesday. Mens Vapormax Flyknit Sale Uk . Varlamov made 33 saves and Ryan OReilly had a goal and scored in the shootout as the Avalanche beat the New Jersey Devils 2-1 on Thursday night. http://www.vapormaxwholesaleuk.com/wholesale-vapormax-womens-trainers/discount-vapormax-womens-white.html . Bryzgalov stopped 25 shots on Saturday in the Oklahoma City Barons 4-1 victory over the Abbotsford Heat. The Oilers signed Bryzgalov to a one-year $2 million contract last Friday after shedding payroll by dealing defenceman Ladislav Smid to the Flames. Black Vapormax Womens Uk . Darren Helm scored on Detroits sixth attempt in the shootout and then Jonas Gustavsson stopped Andrew Shaws shot, lifting the Detroit Red Wings to a 5-4 win over the Chicago Blackhawks on Wednesday night. Nike Joyride Run Uk . Once again Jordan Cieciwa (@FitCityJordan) and I (@LynchOnSports) go head to head in our picks. Last weekend at UFC Fight Night 32 my #TeamLynch got the best of #TeamJC by a score of 9-6. Let us know which side youre on for UFC 167 use the hashtag #TeamLynch or #TeamJC on Twitter. LAS VEGAS -- UFC 200 is Saturdays undisputed biggest betting event, the marquee attraction of a busy sports weekend that also includes the Wimbledon mens and womens finals and the Euro 2016 final.The card was dealt a blow when Jon Jones dropped out of the headlining match with Daniel Cormier, but the UFC was able to quickly fill the void as former champion Anderson Silva signed on to fight Cormier in an intriguing nontitle bout. The Miesha Tate-Amanda Nunes womens bantamweight title bout now takes over as the headliner, with popular heavyweight Brock Lesnar also taking on Mark Hunt -- and just like that, the buzz around the T-Mobile Arena is as electric as ever.The fact that this kind of change doesnt derail the whole show (and that one cant imagine a boxing card scrambling so effectively on short notice) shows how far the Ultimate Fighting Championship has come, especially since its humble beginnings as a niche sport in the 1990s. Weve come to expect the UFC to have exciting title fights and competitive cards from top-to-bottom for fans and bettors alike.That hasnt always been the case.UFC 1 was held on Nov. 12, 1993 at McNichols Arena in Denver, Colorado, and was promoted by original owners Semaphore Entertainment Group (SEG). Early editions of these mixed martial arts events -- commonly referred to as MMA, which includes all the other organizations, although were focusing here on the history of the UFC -- were promoted as no-holds-barred bouts with no rules. There was no set number of rounds and there were no weight classes; contestants fought until the loser was knocked out or choked out, or tapped out.Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) famously referred to the fledgling sport as human cockfighting in 1996 and there were calls to outlaw it. The UFC had many other critics, and it wasnt able to get licensed in Nevada. Instead, it held cards all over the country in a wide variety of cities: Charlotte, North Carolina; Tulsa, Oklahoma; Casper, Wyoming; Buffalo, New York; Detroit, Michigan; Birmingham, Alabama; Augusta, Georgia; Dothan, Alabama; Bay St. Louis, Mississippi; New Orleans, Louisiana; Mobile, Alabama; Cedar Rapids, Iowa; Lake Charles, Louisiana; and Atlantic City, New Jersey. The UFC also hosted events in Puerto Rico and Japan as its fan base grew.The UFC slowly made its way into pop culture and the mainstream, receiving a big boost in that regard when it was featured on the wildly popular TV show Friends on May 8, 1997. In an episode titled The One with the Ultimate Fighting Champion, Monicas millionaire boyfriend Pete Becker (played by Jon Favreau) competes in the octagon and repeatedly takes a beating.John Avello, the director of race and sports at the Wynn Las Vegas, was at his former job at Ballys in the mid-1990s.This was 20 years ago, so I dont have specific recollections of conversations of UFC at that time, Avello says now, but the discussions were probably similar to what were seeing now with esports. I dont recall any meetings with the Gaming Control Board like were having already with esports, but we were keeping an eye on it and deciding how we would book it and how it would be handled by Gaming.Lets face it, it was a younger persons game -- just like esports is now -- but us old bookmakers know how to adjust, and when they cleaned up the sport, it made it OK for us to book it.While the no rules policy appealed to the desired demographic of 18-to-34 males, the UFC gradually outlawed eye-gouging, fish-hooking, hair-pulling, head-butting and blows below the belt to make the sport less barbaric. To appeal to state athletic commissions, they also added rounds and a scoring system to make it more like a sport -- more like boxing, but still decidedly different.The Fertitta brothers -- Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta III, who inherited the Palace Station Hotel-Casino from their father, Frank Jr., in 1993 and built the Station Casino empire here in Las Vegas -- bought the UFC for $2 million in 2001 (current UFC President Dana White, the Fertittas childhood friend, also owns a minority ownership stake). That was just after UFC 29, and they continued to legitimize the sport, which ultimately led to the UFC getting licensed in Nevada.Marc Ratner was the executive director of the Nevada State Athletic Commission from 1992 to 2006 and is credited with helping the UFC get licensed in the state. Ratner later left the NSAC in 2006 to become the UFCs vice president of regulatory affairs, and he has helped the UFC get licensed in every other state -- capped off by New York making it legal in March. Thats a huge comeback from when 36 states banned no-holds-barred fighting in the 1990s.The first card held in Nevada was UFC 33, which took place at the Mandalay Bay Events Center on Sept. 28, 2001. Hugh Citron was a sportsbook supervisor at Mandalay Bay, which was an independent book at that time, and jumped at the chance to set MMA odds.I followed UFC since its inception and was fascinated by it, Citron said, but we didnt book it until we hosted that first event in Las Vegas. The main reason was to give the fans going to the fights a chance to bet, but we found out right awaay that the UFC had very dedicated fans -- and they werent afraid to bet.ddddddddddddIn the following years, other books started booking UFC but would usually just do the main event. But we knew that any fights we put on the board would get tons of action.As Citron alluded to, the UFC became more popular with the sportsbooks in Vegas as MMAs popularity grew in the mainstream, and stars such as Chuck Liddell, Randy Couture and Tito Ortiz emerged. Bettors also loved that most fights didnt go to the judges scorecards, so there were more clear-cut results rather than the kind of controversial decisions that have plagued boxing.The Vegas sportsbooks handle UFC mostly the same way as boxing, with odds on the two fighters and an over/under on the number of rounds. There hasnt been much in the way of prop betting, though there have been a few notable exceptions. When UFC 183 was held on Super Bowl eve in 2015, the Westgate SuperBook posted a prop on the number of completed rounds in the Anderson Silva-Nick Diaz fight vs. the number of made field goals by the Patriots and Seahawks; the FGs were -0.5 and a -150 favorite, but the Silva-Diaz bout went five rounds and only one FG was made in the Super Bowl.Another milestone event was UFC 51 on April 9, 2005, which featured the finale of The Ultimate Fighter reality show that aired on Spike TV. Avello -- who has become well-known outside Nevada for his odds on reality shows such as Survivor, American Idol, The Bachelor and just about any other reality show you can name -- said he remembers getting caught up in The Ultimate Fighter craze, which White, to this day, credits as the turning point when the UFC really went big-time. Avello points out there were other factors that helped the UFC become the force that it is today.There were big names, for sure, but UFC also benefited with the decline of boxing, Avello said. Boxing, which really made this town back in the day with so many big fights, started to fall apart with so few big names except for Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao in recent years, and the heavyweight division has pretty much been nonexistent. UFC has pretty much just filled that void. If the sport of boxing had stayed strong, UFC wouldnt have had as easy of a time growing like it has.Citron marvels at how the sport has continued to increase in popularity, but says handicapping UFC hasnt changed too much.Back when we started booking UFC, it was easier to follow because there were maybe 10 fighters in each weight class, so it wasnt hard to know them all pretty good, he said from his Stratosphere office, where he has worked since 2012, and still enjoys putting up his UFC odds. Now, the UFC has hundreds of fighters, so that makes it more challenging. Its still not like boxing, where you can make a heavy favorite. In UFC, you never want to lay a really big price, because as weve seen with some of the big upsets, anything can happen. The fighters have to engage, unlike boxing, where a fighter might be able to dance around. When you have to engage, theres a lot more ways to lose.Avello agrees with certain public sentiments that the UFC has almost grown too much, and does question whether the product is getting to the point of overexposure. It took 16 years to get to UFC 100 in 2009, or an average of just over 6 cards a year, and now were at UFC 200 just seven years later -- an average of about 14 pay-per-view cards per year, to say nothing of the cards broadcast on TV.Even though Avello mentioned the decline of boxing several times, he stops short of saying UFC has surpassed boxing in the betting arena.Its still comparing apples and oranges, Avello says. Theres still nothing like a big title fight like we had last year with Mayweather-Pacquiao, but the problem with boxing nowadays is that you rarely get a card with good fights on the undercard. But if you take away those mega-boxing events, the UFC cards out-handle the lesser boxing events because theyre usually deeper with more good fights.However, Jay Kornegay of the Westgate Las Vegas SuperBook disagrees, saying that the UFC out-handles boxing, at least at his book, and it comes down to that increase in volume.UFC out-handles boxing at a 2-to-1 clip, with boxing being skewed by a few marquee fights, said Kornegay, adding that an average UFC card takes in bets comparable to a solid NFL playoff game. This disparity is widening every year. UFC cards can offer up to 10 matches to wager on, while boxing only offers one to three at most. A lot of boxing undercard matches arent worthy for posting on betting boards.Despite losing the Jones-Cormier matchup, Saturday nights UFC 200 will still produce big lines at the betting windows at the sportsbooks in Vegas. As of 10 a.m. PT Friday, the consensus Vegas lines for the top fights were:Tate -240 over Nunes, a popular underdog play at +200Hunt -170 over the popular Lesnar at +150Cormier -450 over Silva at +375And a great matchup with a tight line, featuring Frankie Edgar (-115) vs. Jose Aldo (-105) ' ' '