Ryan Arcidiacono: A tale of family and dedication

JOE ARCH had been seated in a Langhorne Dunkin' Donuts for 90 minutes Tuesday morning, reliving the games in Louisville last Thursday and Saturday, the drive back home Sunday, telling stories about his and wife Patti's fourth oldest of six children, looking forward to Houston. When he got up to leave, a lady sitting nearby said: "Didn't I just see you on TV?''

She did. And she will see Joe Arcidiacono again Saturday when Villanova plays Oklahoma in the Final Four. She will also see his son Ryan on the court with the ball, No. 15, playing college game No. 143, already with 4,527 minutes, 1,573 points, 530 assists, 328 rebounds, 168 steals, too many loose ball dives to count, four NCAAs, three Big East regular- season titles, three unbeaten Big 5 seasons, one Big East Tournament title, one Final Four and maybe, just maybe on Monday night, one national championship.

When Villanova beat Kansas Saturday night, Ryan hugged everybody on the court and then headed for the stands, searching for his family.

"I said, 'Ry, this is you working out, this is you outworking everybody, your drive to succeed, this is your reward,' '' Joe said. "I was starting to well up.''

The kid from Langhorne and Neshaminy High, the star player for his AAU team, PA Playaz, the prodigy who spent all those hours as a preteen doing drills with his dad, who played anywhere anytime against anybody, will finish his college career right where he always dreamed he would finish it, playing in the Final Four.

The 10-hour drive home on Easter Sunday will be a lingering memory. There was Joe driving, along with Patti, 15-year-old twins Chris and Courtney, 25-year-old Michael, 28-year-old Nicole, the whole family except Ryan who was home in a few hours after flying on the team charter, and oldest sister Sabrina, who could not get away from her teaching job at Council Rock South.

"My son Michael is a comic,'' Joe said. "He was just at a wedding in Wisconsin so he was doing almost an SNL skit of Wisconsin accents the whole time.''

The ride, Joe said, felt like 2 hours

"They had two iPads out, watching the highlights, watching the interviews, watching the ceremony afterward, watching ESPN talk about it,'' he said.

Half of the family was scheduled to fly out of Newark to Houston on Thursday. The rest are flying from Newark or Philadelphia on Saturday. The family had two rooms at the Brown Hotel last week where the team was staying in Louisville.

"Ryan comes into the room on Friday morning and lays down,'' Joe said. "Courtney jumps on him and then I say, 'What do you think about Kansas?' ''

He says: "I'm winning so she's going.''

"She" would be Sabrina, described by Joe as "Ryan's second mother,'' and she will be going with the rest of them to the Final Four.

Joe and Patti, the Villanova grads, will see their son playing out his career for their school in a large domed stadium. It's been 31 years since they moved to Bucks County. Joe lived near Northeast High and went to Father Judge before butting heads every day at football practice with Howie Long at Villanova.

Patti is a nurse in the neo-natal intensive-care unit at St. Mary Medical Center. Joe is a pharmaceutical sales rep. When he thinks about whether he could have pursued money and a house down the shore, Joe stops himself and says: "I'm not a money guy. I was just always about the kids and playing ball and working Ryan out.''

The court, the field, the diamond, that was and is like home for Joe.

"When I'm with Ryan and Chris (a sophomore basketball player at Neshaminy) working out, I'm in my bailiwick,'' Joe said. "I'm like, 'This is heaven.' I'm like Joe Family.''

It was Joe who spent all those hours with Ryan at the NAC (Newtown Athletic Club), working on ballhandling, shooting, conditioning, whatever it took. Joe discovered a spring-loaded machine called the "shuttle'' at a little club in Bala Cynwyd that helped with Ryan's strength and explosion. They were late-night regulars.

If it took help he could not give, Joe sought it.

Adam Bowen, an assistant coach for Gene Rice's PA Playaz team, thinks he saw Ryan first as a seventh grader.

"You could tell he was so much better than everybody,'' Bowen said.

And there was this early revelation.

"He wanted to be the best player on the court and he wanted everyone to know he was the best player on the court,'' Bowen said.

Bowen coached Arch for 5 years in AAU.

"We started in local tournaments,'' Bowen said. "There were no games within 20 points. We went to Philly and won a lot of those.''

Then, they started to travel.

"His will to win against the best competition in the country separated him from everyone else,'' Bowen said. "He singlehandedly carried the PA Playaz to tournament championships against current pros and top college players. He took every game-winning shot and he made most of them. I'm not surprised he's doing it again.''

In 2009, PA Playaz had a game with the KC Cowboys. Their star player was Perry Ellis, the same Perry Ellis who was on the Kansas team that Arch and Villanova just beat. The roster isn't available, but word is that Buddy Hield was also on that team, the same Buddy Hield who is the star for the Oklahoma team Arch and Villanova play next.

Ben Luber, who played with Bowen at Council Rock, then was the starting point guard for four years at Penn State and is now the associate head coach at Binghamton, was called into the Ryan Arch development game by Bowen the summer between seventh and eighth grade.

"I got a text, an email and a phone call once a day, 'Can I get some drills? This kid can do everything.' '' Luber said.

Luber took on the task of helping to refine Ryan's game.

"Our first workout, he had these black shoes on, no namebrand,'' Luber remembered. "His dad had the same shoes on. I remember saying this kid's not about what everybody else is about right now. Everybody else is worried about shoes.''

Ryan was worried about getting better.

"You sit back now and you enjoy the show,'' Luber said. "You know this kid deserves it more than anybody.''

Ryan's high school coach, Jerry Devine, first saw him at an offseason workout when Joe asked if his son could join in.

"It was like, 'This kid's in eighth grade?' '' Devine said. "You could see he was the most talented. He was so aggressive. All he wanted to do was prove himself. You could see the competitiveness and fire.''

There is now a final college game or two, but no matter what happens, Joe and Ryan will always have the win over No. 1 Kansas that got Villanova to the Final Four.

"I said to (Ryan) Monday night, those two one-and-ones you made, I was never more nervous in my life watching you shoot,'' Joe said. "It was the biggest angst of your whole career. I say that because they were legacy shots. If he misses them and we lost to Kansas, it would be Arch, great career, but . . . I said, 'Please God, don't let it end for this kid like this.' ''

All that practice was for those four free throws.

"And he goes, bang, bang, bang, bang,'' Joe said. "He said to me Monday, 'You know me dad, I want the ball.' ''

He has always wanted the ball. When you combine the desire, the talent, the unique understanding of time, score and situation, you have a point guard whose best skill is winning basketball games; you have the senior leader for Villanova in the Final Four, son of Patti and Joe, Ryan Arch.