Why Villanova is as good as they are

[Bill Marsh]

It isn't sexy, but as always it starts with rebounding, defense, and playing mistake free basketball.

Rebounding -

4 Big East teams are in the top 50 in rebound margin. Xavier is far and away the best.

20. Xavier
44. Providence
45. Villanova
48. Creighton

Defense -

Only one of those is in the top 50 in Field Goal Percentage Defense.

30. Georgetown
35. Marquette
45. Villanova

Turnovers -

Only one of those is also in the top 50 in Turnover Margin.

32. St. John's
41. Villanova

If anyone tells me that Villanova doesn't pass the eye test, I just say they're looking at the wrong things.

One of the things I always like to look at when doing my brackets is Free Throw Percentage because you've got to make FTs to win close games. And there are a lot of close games in the tournament.

1. Providence
16. Creighton
44. Seton Hall

BTW, kudos to St. John's for leading the nation in blocked shots.

Creighton has a pretty amazing trifecta. They are #10 in the country in Field Goal Percentage, something that is normally associated with a team that has a strong inside game and takes a lot of high percentage shots. Obviously. However, Creighton leads the nation in 3-point attempts AND 3-point percentage. Amazing!

Scoring margin is normally a good indicator of a winning formula. (Am I being Mr. Obvious today or what?)

9. Creighton
22. Villanova

[ReynoldsWrap]

Villanova is a well-coached, hard working, highly skilled basketball team, but they have some major flaws that have been exposed over the past week.

1) They have a difficult time defending multiple shooters because of their tendency to over-hedge and over-help on screens and when dribble penetration occurs. They leave even the most lethal shooters unguarded on the perimeter to collapse down into the lane or to jump out at the dribbler after the screen. This has always been a Jay Wright philosophy, and it does work well for the most part, but generally speaking, teams do not have a difficult time getting good looks from outside against Nova.

2) They have a hard time defending guys like Davante Gardner (Marq) because of his girth. Ochefu (Nova) is tall, but he gets moved around in the paint, and still has not figured out how to effectively defend the post without fouling. Pinkston is beefy enough to do it, but he's 6'6 which makes it tough.

3) Nova is unbelievably shallow in the front court. This is a running theme with Villanova. They're pretty loaded at the 1, 2, and 3 spots, plus they have Pinkston at the 4 this year. Ochefu (soph) has shown flashes but is inconsistent and deals with foul trouble constantly. After that, there is very little there. Kris Jenkins is a 6'6 freshman who has gotten minutes here and there, but has not cracked the regular rotation. Darryl Reynolds (6'8 frosh) has played very little.

Even with all that said, I think Nova has earned their ranking (#9) this year, and would be a legitimate 2 or 3 seed if the season ended today. However, I don't see them as a national title contender.

[MackNova]

2 very good posts. I don't get hyped in the who is and who isn't a "national title contender" because the way the bracket falls affects everything. A team that you might not think can win it all might not face an elite team the entire tournament if games fall a certain way.

I'll add: Villanova takes good shots offensively. They're very unselfish, have a high assist/FGM ratio, and the vast majority of their shots come either at the rim, from the free throw line, or behind the 3-point line. Those are the 3 best places to take shots from.

Defensively, Villanova isn't big, but Bell and Pinkston can hold their own against most big guys. Both are 6'7" ish and that's enough against most teams' secondary bigs.

If people's "eye test" is "How many NBA players does this team have?" then we're not going to pass it. We have a few guys that can earn themselves a role if they work hard and get in the right role (Ochefu, Bell, Hilliard, Hart), but they're long shots.

The other thing that makes Villanova good is we have a lot of different guys who can shoot. We have 6 guys who have made at least 13 threes this year. Lots of guys teams have to pay attention to behind the 3-point arc, and all can make open shots.

[ReynoldsWrap]

MackNova - Good points. Good to see another Benchwarmers transplant on this board. I think I remember your name from over there.

[GumbyDamnit!]

So as long as we don't face a team that can shoot as well as Creighton did that night or someone who has someone as big and burly as Gardner we're good. There's literally 2-3 teams that fit that description.

Thought we should have doubled Gardner and dared MU to beat us from 3 and the opposite vs CU.

[BillikensWin]

Seen a couple 'Nova games this year.

Good basketball team. That Creighton game, nobody was beating them.

[Wizard of Westroads]

All of us came into this league not knowing about some of the other teams. A lot of us out in the midwest had seen more of Marquette and GT and undervalued Nova. They're good, deep and well-coached. Who knows how things will go in the tournament, but they're Final Four good.
Some love from ESPN:
http://espn.go.com/blog/collegebasketba ... way-it-was

[billyjack]

Villanova is definitely a Final Four contender. Like the Bill's OP said, high rebounding, low turnovers, good FT%, smart hoops. And they can make up points in a hurry through multiple scorers. Crazy stat from Mack that 6 different players have 13+ three-pointers.