City of Basketball Love

Ari Rosenfeld (@realA_rosenfeld)
--

Villanova’s calling card for the last three-plus seasons--over the course of which it’s captured three Big East titles and, of course, a national championship--has undoubtedly been its balance and versatility on the offensive end.

The current campaign has been no different. The Wildcats currently have four players--seniors Josh Hart and Kris Jenkins, plus sophomores Jalen Brunson and Mikal Bridges-- averaging over 10 points per game.

But what makes them each so difficult to defend is that anyone else in the Wildcats’ seven-man rotation can beat you at any given time. In front of a sellout Wells Fargo Center crowd of nearly 21,000, redshirt-freshman guard Donte DiVincenzo proved just that.

In a tie ballgame against the 12th-ranked Virginia Cavaliers, it was DiVincenzo who provided the game-winning bucket with less than a second remaining, flying in from the left baseline to tip in a Hart miss just before the final buzzer and give the Wildcats a come-from-behind, 61-59 victory.

“Josh made a great play. He saw the lane open and the defense turned their head, and there was only a couple seconds left so if I didn’t get it we were going to overtime,” the Wilmington native said, quick to deflect the spotlight.

“But luckily I got a last-second tip in.”

The putback capped a wild Villanova rally that saw the defending national champs storm back from a 13-point second half deficit behind timely 3-point shooting from Hart and Jenkins. Having combined to miss all 14 of their field goal attempts in the first 32 minutes of action, the two veterans each knocked down two triples in a four-minute span to get their team back in the game.

But when Hart’s layup attempt fell just short with a second left on the clock, there was DiVincenzo, swooping in to get his right palm on the ball with just a tenth of a second to go.

“Donte just made an unbelievable play, obviously not drawn up,” said head coach Jay Wright. “When you have great players that have great basketball IQs--he’s got a great basketball IQ--they know the right play… It’s just a great player with a high basketball IQ understanding the situation.”

The game-winner, easily the highlight of DiVincenzo’s young career, serves as a microcosm of sorts for the role he has grown into for the nation’s top-ranked team.

Thrust into heavier minutes than expected with junior guard Phil Booth being injured since mid-November, the explosive combo guard has had to adjust from being the microwave scorer that he was at the high school level, to being more of a jack-of-all-trades glue guy for a team looking to repeat as national champions.

The top player in Delaware, by a wide margin, DiVincenzo averaged nearly 23 points per game as a high school senior, leading Salesianum to consecutive state titles. However, with his shot not yet falling consistently--he’s shooting just 42 percent from the floor and 31 percent from deep--he’s had to find other ways to contribute, whether it be on defense, moving the ball, or of course, on the glass.

“In the beginning it was an adjustment because I just wasn’t used to it,” DiVincenzo admitted. “But playing with great players like this everyday in practice, doing those little things are only gonna get those guys better and doing those little things are gonna get me better”

It’s a role not even Wright and his staff necessarily foresaw when DiVincenzo committed to become a Wildcat back in January of his junior year--but one into which they’re certainly thankful he has blossomed.

“We’re amazed at his humility. We watched him in high school and saw what a star he was. His ability to come in and do all the other things has really blown us away,” Wright said. “It’s very rare for someone who was a bucket-getter to be so good and so committed to doing the little things, like getting an offensive rebound.”

If the Wildcats are to pull off the first repeat championship since the Florida Gators won back-to-back titles in 2006 and 2007, they will surely need such contributions from DiVincenzo throughout March and into April.

Therein lies the reason for scheduling a game like this in the first place, to provide big-game experience for players like DiVincenzo before being thrown into the fire in the Big East or NCAA tournaments.

“I can tell these guys what it is 100 times, but you won’t really get the full gist of it until you play in a game like this,” said Hart, the Wildcats’ unquestioned leader. “Games like that where you’re playing a great team… You can’t really explain that enough until you go through it.”

And if Sunday was any indication of what can be expected from DiVincenzo going forward, then there just might be another party on the Main Line come April.