City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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Eventually, the shots were bound to start falling for No. 9 Villanova.

La Salle just happened to be the unlucky opponent the day that started happening.

A Wildcats team that was shooting below 30 percent from 3-point territory--and was coming off a dreadful performance in a top-10 matchup in Hawai’i last Monday--found its rhythm big-time against the Explorers, making 13 triples and running away to a 76-47 win.

Villanova (8-1, 2-0 Big 5) shot 54.9 percent (28-of-51) overall and 13-of-28 (46.4 percent) from 3-point range, just six days after making just 4-of-32 (12.5 percent) from distance against No. 8 Oklahoma in a 78-55 defeat.

“I guess we bounced back pretty well,” said senior point guard Ryan Arcidiacono, who tallied 14 points and seven assists in the win. “We had a couple of great practices this week of just getting back to what we do and just playing hard and trying to play defense, and play off each other.”

Watching the Wildcats struggle against the Sooners, La Salle's John Giannini had a feeling he could be in for a long afternoon when his Explorers (4-4, 0-2) took them on next.

“I was sick when I saw them lose that game,” La Salle's 11th-year head coach said. “Really good teams...just really don’t lose back-to-back games very often. I knew that loss made our game much more difficult.”

There was a lot of attention paid to that poor shooting performance from the Wildcats, who entered the game against La Salle at under 29 percent from distance on the season, quite a problem for a team that’s taken more 3-pointers (280) than 2-pointers (271) this season.

It was especially concerning for a team that shot nearly 39 percent from 3-point range a year ago, which had them in the top 25 in the country in that category.

“People can talk about what they want, we know we’re good shooters,” Arcidiacono said. “I think we were just taking pretty difficult shots, contested when we still could have shot-faked, get in the lane. People can talk about that all they want but we know within Villanova what we are and how good of shooters we can be if we take good shots and step into them the right way.”

They proved that on Sunday. Junior guard Josh Hart led the way with 18 points on 7-of-13 shooting, including 3-of-5 from distance; Arcidiacono hit all five of his field goal attempts (two 3-pointers) and Jalen Brunson was 3-of-6 from beyond (4-of-7 overall) for his 13 points.

It was at the beginning of the second half that Villanova really put this one away. Leading 38-23 at the break, the Wildcats made nine of their first 10 shots coming out of the locker rooms, including six of their first seven triples. That helped them open up a lead that was as large as 37 with under eight minutes to play, and for much of the second half Villanova's point total was double that of their opponent.

On the flip side, the Wildcats held the Explorers below 50 points for the first time since Jan. 22, 2015, doing so by limiting La Salle to 32.7 percent (17-of-52) from the floor and slowing the game down to just 60 possessions.

La Salle leading scorer Jordan Price, who came into the game second in the nation in scoring (25.9 ppg), was held to 16 points on 6-of-17 shooting, his lowest output of the season.

“Really happy with our effort tonight, really good defensive effort, especially on Jordan,” Nova head coach Jay Wright said. “One of the things you get concerned about when you play La Salle...if you put too much emphasis on stopping Jordan Price--you know he can go for 40--then he gets everybody else going, then you can be in trouble.”

The win makes it a dozen in a row in the Big 5 for Wright’s Wildcats, who haven’t lost a city series game since Temple came to the Pavilion and left with a 76-61 win on Dec. 5, 2012. Since then, ‘Nova has hardly been challenged, winning all but one of those games by double-digits.

They’re only two wins away from tying the all-time Big 5 consecutive wins record--which is also held by Villanova, who won 14 straight between Feb. 7, 2005 and Feb. 4, 2008.

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Divincenzo hurt
Villanova freshman guard Donte Divincenzo sat out the game with a boot on his right foot, and afterwards it sounds like he could miss quite a bit of time. Villanova's next game is on Saturday at No. 10 Virginia, and it seems doubtful he'll be playing in that one.

“He’s got a serious foot injury,” Wright said. “We got one look at it, it’s definitely serious enough for him to miss this game and probably Virginia, so we’re trying to get another look at this to see how serious it is.”

Divincenzo, a 6-4 guard from Salesianum (Del.), was averaging 1.9 ppg in 9.3 mpg through ‘Nova’s first eight games of the year. If he’s out for the rest of the season, he is eligible for a medical redshirt, having played in fewer than what will be 30 percent of his team’s total games for the season.