Villanova stunned by Wisconsin
No. 1 and done. Top-seeded Villanova was bounced from the NCAA Tournament by eighth-seeded Wisconsin, which overcame foul trouble for two of its stars in the second half Saturday to upset the defending champions 65-62 in the East region.
Nigel Hayes scored 19 points, dropping a layup in traffic with 11.4 seconds left to put Wisconsin ahead 64-62, and Bronson Koenig added 17 for the tournament-toughened Badgers (27-9), who are going back to the Sweet 16 for the fourth straight year. They’ll play next week at New York’s Madison Square Garden after knocking off Villanova (324), which never found its traction in snowy Buffalo.
Josh Hart scored 19 to lead the Wildcats, but the senior guard was stripped by Wisconsin center Ethan Happ on a drive in
game wasn’t even competitive midway through the first quarter.
It was a fun experience for Albany. Bernabei-McNamee was joking around with the legendary UConn coach, Geno Auriemma. They’d taken photos together the day before. Even the UConn fans applauded the Great Danes during introductions. It was a “cool to be here” type of atmosphere for Albany, and Auriemma and his fans played to it. But once the game started, it was the Huskies who showed why the were the No. 1 seed.
“We let them get a lot more shots in the second half,” said Tate. “They were getting the shots they wanted and making them.”
Bernabei-McNamee said the team was fired up in the second half. They were talking about the game in the context of still winning it, despite facing a 26-point deficit.
UConn hasn’t lost in 108 games, and are five wins away from their fifthstraight National Championship. It wasn’t really a question of if Albany could win. Auriemma insisted they had a chance on Friday by virtue of the fact that there would be a scorer and three referees.
But on Saturday, after the win, he acknowledged that he used to press to speed up a game against a team with inferior talent. And once he did, and the game separated, UConn reverted back to dominating in the halfcourt.
“It’s not what I thought it would be,” senior Cassandra Edwards said. “Before the game we were fired up and had lots of energy. The game just didn’t go our way.”
Albany is a team with pedigree, of course. Six straight conference titles will give you that. But in a lot of ways, this team is connected to its past success in name only.
They had a new coach in Bernabei-McNamee. A new star in Imani Tate. A new look in general. None of the players or coaches wanted to come here and lose. Their effort to make it a game was valiant and admirable. But the loss made sense.
Going up against a team who’s taller and stronger and more talented at every position. It was the sensible result. So even if Albany had the mindset of pulling the upset, the consolation prize was good, and they recognized that too.
A chance to play college basketball royalty with everything on the line. It wasn’t the game Albany wanted, but it’s hard to say it was anything but expected.
“You look at a lot of teams we played this season, they don’t compete as hard as Albany did,” Auriemma said. “That says a lot about their players, their coach and their coaching staff. Maybe that’s why they are in the Tournament every year.”
Before every game Auriemma likes to ask his coaching staff, ‘What will it take for us to lose today?’
The fact that Albany was under-seeded came up. The fact that the Great Danes are tough did too. They don’t stop playing. And finally, associate head coach Chris Dailey said, “We would have to miss a lot of shots.”
One-hundred and sixteen points later, it was clear that wouldn’t be a problem. The worst case scenario for UConn didn’t come to fruition. And in a way, it didn’t for Albany either.
“We were very excited to be in postseason play,” Bernabei-McNamee said. “It might not have been the game that we wanted. Or we might not have played the second half that we wanted to play. I thought we played with our hearts ... But it just didn’t go our way.”