UCLA at Villanova Preview

Here we go.  Our first real road game.  You know what they say: 

"The road is a harsh mistress."  - Robert Heinlein (not really)

"The roads must roll.: -Robert Heinlein (really)

"The road is dark and full of terrors." - George R. R. Martin (not exactly)

"If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.” – Lewis Carroll (exactly)

"A young team on the road against a veteran team is a reciple for disaster." - Me

It's not just playing on the road.  Cronin has said the Europeans are having some problems to adjusting to how physical the college game is.  Villanova will take the physicality to a higher level.  

In particular, their guards are older, big, strong, and play a very physical game.  They also like to post up and push players around.  Our guards aren't all that strong.


The computers predict a fairly close game, but a loss.  If this were on a neutral floor, it would be pretty close to a pickem game.

VILLANOVA RECORD 


I doubt you can find a lot of other teams with a Quad 1 win and two Quad 3 losses.  Apparently the Wildcats can beat just about anyone and lose to just about anyone.

They have quality wins over North Carolina (#25 KenPom), Memphis (41), and Texas Tech (50).  

Nova has losses to Penn (194), Drexel (110), and St. Joseph's (89)


Villanova has lost their last three games.  We have yet to win against a D1 team away from Pauley.


The stats aren't all that different.  We have a better defense.  They have a better offense.  We are a little better on the boards. 

They have amassed these stats against a much tougher schedule.  However, they haven't played two Top Ten KenPom teams like we have, and we were very competivie with those team.  Villanova is NOT a Top Ten KenPom team..

We play a very slow tempo.  They are even slower.  

NOTE:  The numbers below in parentheses are national ranks.


Here's why their results are so erratic.  Over half their shots are three-pointers.  They aren't a great outside shooting team at #201 in the country.  We are a poor three-point shooting team and we are almost as good as they are.

Lots of three-pointers means high variance.  When your shots are going in, you are going to score a lot.  When they aren't you can have troubles.  In their three worst losses, they shot 27%, 27%, and 19% from the arc.  (The Philly schools shot 41%, 52%, and 50%),  So one key to the game is not giving them easy three-point shots.  They love to penetrate and kick it out to the line.  We need to make sure we don't over-help, leaving open outside shooters.

Our three-point defense is average.  Theirs is bad.  They will pack the lane and dare us to beat them from the outside.  We aren't exactly the right team to do that.  We shoot very few threes and don't connect at a high rate.

Players

After facing Big East pre-season Player of the Year, Tyler Kolek, we may have to face first-team all-Big-East Justin Moore and second-team Eric Dixon.  I write "may have to face", because Moore left in the first half of the game on Tuesday with an sprained knee.  Villanova still took a good Kansas State team to OT, without him.  At this point, I haven't heard whether he will play on Saturday.  Moore is out for Saturday's game.

This is a very mature team.  They play 9 players.  Six are seniors, and half of them are 5th-year seniors.  The others are a junior and two sophomores. There's only one freshman on the roster, and he hasn't played all year.  KenPom ranks them as the #10 team in the country in experience.  We are #322.

They also big.  Their post players aren't that big, but their guards are big and strong.  They are all capable of posting you up.


As strong as they are, other than Armstrong, they aren't all that quick.  We might find that we can run a bit and beat them off the dribble.

Outlook

I don't love this matchup.  Our first true road game with a very young team.  We are young.  They are mature.  They have quality wins.  We don't.  They are very strong and physical.  We are not.

OTOH, they have some bad losses.  

Here ae the keys to the game:

• Defending the three-point shot
• Maintaining our poise in a hostile environment
• Dealing with their physical play.
• Keeping our bigs out of foul trouble.
• Stopping their post-up game.  They love to post up smaller guards.
• Hitting our open outside shots.
• Defending the three-point shot.
• Defending the three-point shot.

It seems like this game will depend on how well they shoot the three.  They shoot almost 30 of them per game.  That's good for #12 in the nation.  They made 33% of them in their wins, but only 27% in their losses.

They will penetrate.  If we help on the penetration, they are capable of kicking it out and making the extra pass to the open shooter.  And everyone (except Ware) is a thre-point shot.  If we don't help out, they are capable of driving to the hoop or posting up a smaller defender.  Moore and Bamba are particularly good at posting up.

A few other key factors are how well we maintain our poise in a hostile environment and how we we deal with their physical play.  

As I mentioned, they tend to pack the paint and dare you to shoot from the outside.  Their 2-point defense is quite a bit better than their 3-point defense.  I am sure their scouting report says we are not a good three-point shooting team, so they may pack it in even more.

Given the little bit I have read about knee sprains, I would guess Justin Moore doesn't play.  While that hurts Villanova, they have plenty of other capable players.

Two weeks ago I was extremely pessimistic about our chances in Philly.  Now I think we have a realistic shot at winning this game.  

It may not be profound analysis to say this game will come down to how well both teams shoot the three, that seems like the key to this game.