NEW YORK -- Two years ago when Villanova won the Big East Tournament, there was bedlam at Madison Square Garden.
The Villanova players celebrated wildly, they ran around the court pumping up the fans, they squeezed every possible moment of joy from the program's first conference tournament title in 20 years.
This time?
A couple high fives and that was it.
It was the most muted celebration you'll ever see.
"I thought about the same thing," Josh Hart said. "I think last time we ran on, we stormed the court, everyone's jumping around, doing all that.
"But I think part of it was just exhaustion. We just played as hard as we could for 40 minutes. And then definitely we know we've got to get a lot better. We've got to keep being coachable. I think that was the other half of that.
"And obviously we're very humble, very honored to win this against a tough Creighton team. Give them all the respect and credit. But we've got to keep getting better."
Villanova beat Creighton, 74-60, to win this year's Big East title game at the Garden on Saturday night, and of course, the biggest difference between this championship and the one in 2015 is that this is a group of players that celebrated a much larger championship a year ago.
And there's no denying winning an NCAA title gives a team a different perspective on winning a conference championship.
Why no celebration? Because after celebrating a national title it would seem trivial to celebrate a conference title?
"No, I don't think it's that," Kris Jenkins said. "It's just we’ve got a lot of work to still do, man. That's all it is. We're focused. Just watch Selection Sunday together and move on.
"We're just that focused, and we still have a lot we want to accomplish. This is a great win for our program and our school, but we still have a lot we want to accomplish."
Villanova is now 31-3 and is expected to be a No. 1 seed when the NCAA Tournament bracket is announced Sunday evening. The Wildcats will open play Thursday in Buffalo in a 1-16 game, then, if all goes as expected Thursday, play for a berth in the Sweet 16 on Saturday.
Senior Darryl Reynolds had an interesting take on the absence of a wild celebration Saturday night.
"There is a looking-ahead feeling, you can't deny that," he said. "The season isn't over. Last year, we got to this point and if we lost this game, I don't think we would have won the national championship.
"Because last year's game against Seton Hall showed us if we paid that much closer to detail, we got it. We have everything else, just have to pay that much more attention to detail.
"So I think at the end of this game, we realized, 'OK, last year we didn’t let it crush us. We learned from it, and we kept moving forward.' This year we don’t let it make us, and we learn from it and we still keep on moving forward."