As a Villanova fan, I can simplify this pretty well for you, It will come down to two things
Houston’s shooting, and
Houston’s ability to defend without fouling.
Everyone discounts Villanova’s interior defense because we don’t have a rim protector, but the bigs we face typically don’t have a field day against us because of our perimeter defense. Our guys guard 1-5 and are pesky. If the ball does get inside, our players are all taught to not give up much ground, so bigs are forced into making shots from 7 feet rather than 3 feet. That’s a big part of the reason Dickerson missed so many of his shots last night.
We will hit our free throws. If Houston starts to foul, that plays very well into our hands. On the flip side of that, a closely called game could push us past our Iron Six into players who aren’t elite athletes (#4 Archidiacono) or elite system players (#1 Antoine).
As the OP stated clearly, Villanova will not lose this game; Houston will have to win it by taking advantage where it is given.
I’m really looking forward to this matchup.
One other thing to keep in mind: Villanova has had some trouble closing out games. We had double digit leads in the second half against both Purdue and UCLA, but we have a tendency at that point to stall rather than play our offense. You saw that yesterday with about two minutes left.
I said it before and I’ll say it again… We’re the team that will be exploiting mismatches each game… That’s the beautiful thing about this team… Every game different players step up to help win the game… I think Fabs has his day against Nova.
I just watched the Michigan-Nova quick match and noticed a few things.
Michigan is really not active, especially on D. Several Nova buckets I watched 4 players just standing around. Nova had a lot of easy shots due to this. Also on offense they moved a bit more but didn’t really make it that hard.
It seems like Nova primarily puts a lot of emphasis on the perimeter D which makes sense but it often made them look vulnerable inside, good thing Michigan’s center, while tall, looked like he was running through mud.
Also Nova can really shoot the 3, it seemed that was their primary scoring threat which plays in our favor because we tend to defend the 3 well.
Huh? Why not?? I said it as a POSITIVE. Not sure how u took it, but I’m not one who doesn’t mention a No-Hitter in the 6th inn. I think the streak will continue.
Superstition. You never say things like that. It’s like the announcer stating that the player never misses free throws, inevitably they will miss the very next one. Gotta know the rules!!!
I have No rules. I just mentioned that i have zero issue with bringing up a no-hitter in progress.
Funny thing just happened-- P.J Carlisimo is talking on Sirius radio ESPN U n brought up that Houston is 6-0 in ELITE 8 gms. Complete coincidence but again ea does there own. No rules exist.
