KANSAS CITY — Villanova’s JayVaughn Pinkston didn’t grow up dreaming of playing in the NCAA Tournament. The thought never occurred to him, mostly because playing basketball hadn’t occurred to him.
Raised in the Brownville section of Brooklyn, which famously produced Mike Tyson and Riddick Bowe, Pinkston was infatuated with boxing and participated in the junior Golden Gloves. It wasn’t until a growth spurt at the age of 11, and a push from his cousin, Tyren, that Pinkston first considered leaving his first love.
“The first time I played basketball, I played at a local rec center and I was terrible,” said Pinkston, who leads Villanova with 13.1 points. “After that, the next summer my cousin just worked me out every day, six, seven in the morning and we’d go out and shoot every day.
“When we were waking up at six, I’m like, ‘Do I really want to do this?’ But after a while, I’m like, ‘Yeah, I really love this game.’ And that was all she wrote.”
The 6-foot-6 sophomore forward became one of the top players in the the country playing at Bishop Loughlin High School, where he was a McDonald’s All-American, but Pinkston’s collegiate debut was postponed after he was suspended for his first season following an altercation at a fraternity house.
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He embraced his second chance as if the game could be taken away at any time, knowing it could. In two seasons, the sophomore forward has become one of Villanova’s most valuable, and credits much of his success to what he’d done long before picking up a ball.
“[Boxing] gave me my good footwork that I have now and gave me great coordination,” Pinkston said. “It still helps. It’s shaped me a lot into what type of player I am today.”
Pinkston leads the ninth-seeded Wildcats (20-13) against eighth-seeded North Carolina (24-10) in tonight’s second round game at the Sprint Center. He likes the idea of the Big East facing the ACC and knows that playing in the former has prepared Villanova for anything.
“It has prepared us a lot, as far as playing against the top teams in the country, like Louisville, Georgetown and teams like that,” Pinkston said. “I’m really just excited to get out there already. This is a great experience.”