City of Basketball Love

Matthew Ryan (@matthewmryan02)
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PITTSBURGH — For a moment, the thought of history repeating itself began to linger inside of PPG Paints Arena. The crowd of 18,738 college basketball fans sat and wondered, could they see the second 15-seed upset in as many nights? Could Delaware really knock off two-seed Villanova in the first round?

But as quickly as those thoughts trickled in, they disappeared.

With under six minutes remaining in the first half and Delaware leading 23-20, Jermaine Samuels caught the ball at the top of the key. Like he's known to do, Samuels pump-faked an open 3-point shot, much to the dismay of Wildcats fans, and drove to the basket. A couple of feet from the rim, Samuels raised up for an emphatic dunk, turning those groans into cheers as he began a massive run that led the Wildcats to an 80-60 victory in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

There was no St. Peter’s vs. Kentucky part two.

"We knew that was the possibility," Gillespie said about going down early, "just trying to figure out what they were doing, how they were guarding defensively and how they were attacking us offensively. So we were just telling each other ‘stick together, 40-minute game,’ and that's what we were going to do."

The win was the Wildcats’ 20th in their last 23 games and their 13th straight victory in the first round of March Madness. Since missing the tournament in 2012, Villanova is 19-6 in the NCAA Tournament, including two national championships in 2016 + ‘18.

“I think I told somebody the other day, when I got the job at the University of Delaware, Villanova has been the best basketball program in college basketball [...] they’ve been the model program,” Ingelsby said. “It hasn't been Duke, it hasn't been Kentucky, it hasn't been North Carolina, and it hasn't been Kansas. It's been Villanova.”

The Big East Tournament champions will go on to face No. 7 seed Ohio State on Sunday, which is coming off a dominating defensive performance in holding No. 10 seed Loyola-Chicago to just 41 points.

Villanova and Ohio State last played a game back in 2019 where the Buckeyes walked away with a convincing 76-51 regular-season victory.

Against Delaware, Villanova opened up the game with four quick points, but after that went ice cold. By the second media timeout, the Wildcats had mustered just eight points, all coming inside the paint, and trailed 15-8, their largest deficit of the day.

Started by Samuels’ dunk, the Wildcats closed the half on a 15-2 run, giving them a 10-point lead at the break. The spurt carried over into the second half and ended as a 23-2 stretch in favor of the Wildcats, giving them a 43-25 lead early in the second half. Over that span, Villanova knocked down five 3s while holding Delaware to just 1-for-12 shooting.

Junior guard Justin Moore erupted for 15 points within the first nine minutes of the second half, all of his baskets coming in margins of three — three 3s and two three point plays — on his way to a game-high 21 points. Samuels followed, scoring 15 points, just ahead of Gillespie, who had 14, knocking down four 3s.

The Wildcats shot 13-for-28 from deep (46.4%), with four players connecting on multiple long balls. The hot shooting performance came against a team that hasn’t done a great job defending the three ball all season. The Blue Hens held opponents to 35.4% shooting from deep, 276th in the country, according to KenPom.com, but they were coming off a CAA Tournament championship run that saw them hold their three opponents to just 12-for-61 (19.7%) shooting from deep.

"They're a really talented basketball team,” Ingelsby said. “I think [they] played really well, they shot the ball well, and they made 13 threes. I think that was the difference in the game."

Delaware was led by Jyare Davis, who finished with 17 points on 7-for-10 shooting. Andrew Carr was the only other Blue Hen to eclipse double figures, scoring 13 points, making all five of his shots and one three-pointer.

Villanova's lead ballooned to as many as 23 with 9:57 remaining in the contest, but the Wildcats didn't let up. After all, they have to play 40 minutes to play ‘40 minutes of Villanova basketball,’ as they so often call it.

After pestering the referees with some rather colorful language at points, Wright finally got the technical foul he'd been asking when he complained about a foul called on Brandon Slater.

“I said ‘he ran into his own man,’” Wright stated. “That's all I said. [...] Never said a curse word. Not that I don't sometimes, but I didn't [that time].”

Late in the second half, with the game already decided, Wright elected to keep his starters in. One fan yelled at him, "what's it going to take, an ACL [tear]?" referencing the injury risk.

Moments later, there was an injury. But it didn’t have to do with the starters being on the floor, and it wasn’t an injury to a player. It was simply a product of playing ‘Villanova basketball.’

Following a missed shot from Bryan Antoine, Samuels hustled to the sideline to go after a rebound despite his team's sizable lead. He dove into the bench, saving the ball, while assistant coach Dwayne Anderson tried to catch him. However, Anderson wasn't able to catch him cleanly. All he caught was an elbow to the face, sending him to the locker room with a bloody towel covering his nose.

"Tell you what, Dwayne Anderson would have gotten really mad at Jermaine if he didn't go after that loose ball," Wright said. "That is why he went after it.”

“No, that's not what we do here at Villanova,” Samuels said when asked if he thought about not going for the loose ball. “We're going to play a full 40. That's just the way we play here, no matter what's going on around us.”