City of Basketball Love

Will Slover (@WillSlover31)

--

Since being named the No.1 team in all of college basketball on December 5th, Villanova has seen that top ranking almost fall from their grap twice in close contests with La Salle and Notre Dame.

After being knotted up with American midway through the first half, and the Wildcats severely struggling to operate under the half-court tempo that was being thrown at them, it looked as if Villanova might have another scare coming their way.

“Give (American head coach) Mike (Brennan) and American credit for the way they started the game,” Villanova head coach Jay Wright said. “I’m telling you, we were ready to play. We were. They just executed extremely well in the half court and we tried to play them in some half court basketball and we struggled.”

Struggling is exactly what the Wildcats were doing. That is, until Villanova spun off a quick 11-2 run over the following 3:31 to give themselves a bit of breathing room and take a nine point lead with 6:29 to go in the first half.

Shortly after, Villanova saw their lead grow into double digits until a three-pointer by American junior forward Mike Cimino cut it to nine with just six seconds remaining in the half and Villanova needed some late-half heroics from senior guard Josh Hart, who drilled a jumper as time expired, to put them back into double digit territory.

Coming out of the half, it was all Villanova, as the Wildcats dominated the second frame and outscored American 50-19 over the final 20 minutes to defeat their Patriot League foe by a score of 90-48 in front of a sold out crowd on Wednesday night.

Their controlling second half was set up due to circling back to their game plan, which they had strayed away from in the early going.

“It's one of the things we wanted to do in the second half,” Wright said. “We kind of got away from it a little bit in the first half. We wanted to get Josh and Kris (Jenkins) in the post a little bit. The first possession, we got them in there twice and they got fouled. We didn’t score on that possession, but it was a good start to the half.”

After the two early fouls, American struggled to play clean defense as they found themselves with ten team fouls with 14:33 remaining in the ballgame.

Villanova used this advantage to go 16-of-19 (.842) from the stripe in the second half, their most made and attempted free throws in a half all season.

The tenth foul of the half was a deadly one for American, as it spelled the end for their starting center, freshman Mark Gasperini, who fouled out in just 11 minutes of action.

His absence opened up the lane for the Wildcats, and they took advantage.

Following his departure, Villanova went on a 20-2 run over the ensuing six minutes and put American away for good.

After the run, Villanova was ahead by 35, 72-37, their largest lead of the ballgame to that point,  and the majority of fans had already begun to head for the exits.

To close out the ball game, Villanova took their foot off the gas and finished strong as the Wildcats held on to win their 12th game in as many contests on the 2016-17 season.

“They kind of won the battle of the first half and we won the battle of the second half, big. That’s the game,” Wright said.

For Villanova, it was more of the same from Hart.

The senior guard from Silver Spring, Md. continued his recent dominance, as he was averaging 25.0 points, 7.6 assists and 4.0 rebounds per game in December coming into this contest, and added onto that with a 20 point, seven rebound, three assists performance in Villanova’s win.

Hart’s recent outburst has cemented his case as one of the favorites to win National Player of the Year, as following his 37-point performance against Villanova, the 6-foot-4 tri-captain was named National Player of the Week by the United States Basketball Writers Association, the first Villanova player to be given the honor since Darrun Hilliard in January of 2013.

Hart was aided by the efforts of redshirt sophomore forwards Eric Paschall and Mikal Bridges, and sophomore guard Jalen Brunson.

Paschall and Bridges each chipped in with 15 points, with the former adding in six rebounds and the latter with four assists while Brunson scored 14 points of his own and paced the Wildcats with six assists.

Also finishing with double digits for Villanova was redshirt freshman Donte DiVincenzo, who has seen an increased role since Phil Booth has been sidelined due to a nagging knee injury for the past nine games. The 6-foot-4 product of Salesianum (Del.) finished with 12 points, one shy of a career high, and also added in five rebounds.

For American, their lone standout was freshman guard Sa’eed Nelson.

Nelson, the St. Augustine Prep (N.J.) graduate and two time Patriot League Rookie of the Week, scored 11 points for the Eagles and also added in team-high’s of four rebounds and two assists.

This loss marks the eighth on the season for American (3-8) as they will look to rebound at the start of their conference play when they take on Loyola (Md.) on December 30th.

Villanova’s win extends their school-best win streak to 18 games and should also keep them atop both the AP and USA Today Coaches’ Poll for the fourth straight week heading into conference play as the Wildcats will play host to Depaul on December 28th.

After a strong out-of-conference performance from his team, Hart thinks that the Wildcats are moving in the right direction as they head into the most important part of their regular season schedule.

“We feel like we’re progressing. We feel like we’re getting better day-by-day,” Hart said. “I think we’re ready for the Big East season but we just have to keep getting better as a team.”