Freshman Bey a pleasant surprise for the Wildcats
RADNOR >> Saddiq Bey’s growth as a college player was on full display in the final minute of Villanova’s 66-65 loss to Marquette Saturday.
After Phil Booth hit a jumper with 44 seconds left in the game to get the Wildcats within a point, Villanova coach Jay Wright turned to Bey, a 6-8 freshman forward, to stop high-scoring Marquette guard Markus Howard, who torched the Wildcats for 38 points.
Wright could have gone with a veteran like Booth, but felt that Bey’s length and athleticism would be problematic for the 5-11 Howard, which it was. Bey forced Howard to turn the ball over with 14 seconds remaining, giving the Wildcats one last chance to pull out a come-from-behind victory.
Even though Jermaine Samuels’ last-second shot was off the mark, the decision to put Bey on Howard spoke volumes to his growth as a player.
“When you have the confidence to put a freshman on a guy that talented with the game on the line,” Wright said Tuesday, “it shows you how much confidence we have in him defensively.”
Bey was the last of the four recruits to sign with the Wildcats last season and the lowest ranked, according to the various recruiting services.
He committed to the Wildcats (19-5, 10-1 Big East) in June, yet going into Wednesday’s Big East game with Providence (14-10, 4-7) at the Finneran Pavilion (6:30 p.m., FS1, 610ESPN), Bey has proven to be the surprise of the recruiting class.
Bey leads the freshmen in games played
(24), minutes per game (28.0), scoring (8.3), rebounding (5.0), assists (27) and steals (22). Overall, he’s fourth on the team in scoring, rebounding and assists, and is tied with Eric Paschall for second in steals.
He is the only first-year player to see action in all 24 games, with 17 starts. Bey has scored in double figures 10 times, with a career-high of 17 in last week’s win over Creighton. Over the last six games, he is averaging 10.5 points. 5.8 rebounds, 1.5 assists and 1.5 steals per game. He is shooting 45.6 percent overall and 36.5 percent from 3-point range for the season.
Bey gives all the credit to Eric Singletary, his high school coach at Sidwell Friends (the same school that produced Josh Hart) and the work he put in over the summer preparing for the rigors of college basketball.
“He follows Villanova a lot so it made it better coming in, even though there was a lot for me to learn,” Bey said of Singletary. “When I came in here I was constantly working on the little things.”
At Villanova, that means playing hard, smart and together. It also means playing defense and rebounding, and Bey embraced those core tennets of Wright’s program.
“I had to play hard every possession, every game, every drill,” Bey said. “There’s no days off. There’s no drill off. The biggest lesson I learned is to play hard every time.”
Bey’s development comes as no surprise to Wright, even though he backed off recruiting Bey after Wright landed Brandon Slater. Not because they play the same position, but because, at the time, Villanova was out of scholarships. That changed, though, when Donte DiVincenzo and Omari Spellman decided to go to the NBA.
“I watched him a lot when he was young,” Wright said. “I didn’t really see him as much his senior year so I wasn’t sure what to expect, but as soon as he got here and started working out for us we saw he could be ready. He’s really been a pleasant surprise.”