City of Basketball Love

Aron Minkoff (@AronMinkoff) &
Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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On the 74th anniversary of the attacks made on Pearl Harbor, the Villanova Wildcats will take on the Oklahoma Sooners in a neutral-site game played the Joint-Base Pearl Harbor in Hickham, Hawai'i.

Villanova sits at 7-0, ranked No. 8 in the Associated Press top-25, and will look to earn a signature win against Oklahoma, who is 5-0 and ranked No. 6 in the poll. The two teams will face off Monday evening at 7:00 p.m. on FS1.

Here are keys for Villanova to pull off the victory:

Crash the Boards
Villanova has to do a better job of crashing the boards, especially against an Oklahoma team that thrives in that department and has the matchup advantage. According to KenPom, Villanova ranks 294th in securing defensive rebounds (65.2 percent), while the Sooners rank 45th in crashing the offensive glass (36.5 percent).

‘Nova will have to do a better job in this department, as games between evenly matched teams can usually come down to the rebounding disparity. They might be a little shorthanded as redshirt sophomore forward Darryl Reynolds, the team's only true post presence besides starter Daniel Ochefu, is apparently day-to-day to play Monday with a lower left leg/left foot injury sustained in the Wildcats' win over St. Joe's last week.

Win the turnover battle
Villanova ranks 18th in the nation in forcing turnovers, doing so on 23.5 percent of opponents possessions, and is and sixth in protecting the ball, coughing it up on just 13.7 percent of their own possessions; that's resulted in a +6.7 turnover per game rate that has them third in the country. Their opponent fares much worse than that in each category. Oklahoma ranks 118th in avoiding turnovers (17.5 percent) and far lower in forcing them (15.6 percent, 305th). This coupled with Oklahoma’s susceptibility to having the ball stolen an alarming 9.8 times per game, and all of the sudden Villanova’s biggest strength combined with Oklahoma’s biggest weakness creates the chance for an ugly game.

The Wildcats have the ability to win the turnover battle with their sneaky quick guards and plethora of talent in the backcourt with Jalen Brunson (11.1 ppg), Ryan Arcidiacono (12.4 ppg) and Josh Hart (15.3 ppg). If Oklahoma isn't able to change it up a bit they could be in for a long day. There will be a lot of pressure on Sooners star Buddy Hield (21.4 ppg) and point guard Jordan Woodard (12.4 ppg, 3.8 apg) to make smart decisions against the 'Nova press and their big men to make solid passes as well.

Take advantage of versatility
The Sooners run a good deal of their offense through Hield--about 30.1 percent of their possessions go through him, and he takes 33.5 percent of their shots when he's in the game, which puts him in the top 25 players in the country. The Wildcats will need to be aware of wherever he is on the floor at all times, and if they can slow Hield down, they'll greatly improve their odds of coming out winners in this top-10 showdown.

Villanova is almost the opposite: no player on the 'Cats roster has a usage rate higher than 23.7 percent (Brunson), and Hart leads the team in taking 25.6 percent of available shots when he's on the floor, which puts him outside the top 400 players in Division I hoops. The Wildcats have five players averaging between 9.4 ppg (Ochefu) and 15.3 ppg (Hart), and any one of those five could lead the team in scoring on Monday night; the less reliant they are on any one player in a big game, the better.