Villanova hoping Winthrop win can be a growing gain
Before Friday night, Villanova’s Jeremiah Robinson-Earl had never played in an NCAA Tournament game. The 6-9 sophomore forward was not alone in that respect.
Teammates Justin Moore, Caleb Daniels, Chris Arcidiacono, Bryan Antoine and Eric Dixon also made their NCAA Tournament debuts in the Wildcats’ 7363 victory over Winthrop. Robinson-Earl, Moore, Arcidiacono and Antoine were robbed of that opportunity last year when the NCAA Tournament was canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Even if there had been a tournament last season, Daniels and Dixon would not have played since they were sitting out the season as redshirts.
The pressure of playing in the Big Dance for the first time can be daunting. Yet the lack of tournament experience wasn’t a problem for the fifth-seeded Wildcats against the 12th-seeded Eagles.
Robinson-Earl finished with 22 points, 11 rebounds and career highs in assists (six) and blocked shots (three). Moore had 15 points and also blocked three shots. The Wildcats finished with a seasonhigh eight rejections.
Daniels netted 10 points, his first double-digit game since Feb. 28 and Antoine added eight points off the bench, including two huge threes early in the second half that gave the Wildcats the separation they needed to pull away. Now they advance to a second round meeting with 13tjhseeded North Texas Sunday at Bankers Life Fieldhouse in Indianapolis (8:45 p.m., TNT).
The Wildcats (17-6) played with the poise of a veteran team. Villanova controlled the tempo on offense and played some of its best transition defense to limit Winthrop’s running game. The Wildcats also took care of the basketball. Villanova only turned the ball over six times, and four of those turnovers came on offensive fouls.
“I think our guys learned a lot and I feel good about the future, getting those guys those minutes,” Villanova coach Jay Wright said on a Zoom call Saturday night. “Really, Jermaine Samuels is the only guy who’s played significant minutes in the NCAA tournament. That’s kind of the byproduct (of the pandemic) and a nice icing on the cake, getting a win like that and getting those guys experience and then getting them the opportunity to play another experienced team like North Texas.”
It has taken a few games but maybe the Wildcats are getting more comfortable in playing without All-American point guard Collin Gillespie, who is out for the season with a torn left MCL.
“We’ve had a lot of time to practice without Collin, a huge player that we’re missing out on,” Robinson-Earl said. “He’s our point guard, our senior captain leader and he does a great job for us, but it shows how we’re paying attention to detail in practice and having that allotted time to prepare for the most difficult situations like last night, playing our first NCAA Tournament game and not having our starting point guard. We’ve been doing a great job this past week.”
That attention to detail will be critical against North Texas (189). The Mean Green, yes that’s their nickname, pose a different problem than Winthrop. Where the Eagles wanted to run, the Mean Green will try to slow things down. They rank 350th in adjusted tempo, according to Kenpom.com. There are 357 teams in Division I.
But North Texas does not just walk the ball up the court and play at a snail’s pace all the time as it proved in its 78-69 upset in overtime of fourth-seeded Purdue in the first round. The Mean
Green ran when the opportunity presented itself.
“If you saw that North Texas team play, it’s not really an upset,” Wright said. “They’re an experienced team with four seniors and a junior (in the starting lineup), a really experienced, smart team against a young Purdue team. We’re kind of similar, a young team, and they’re very efficient at what they do. Offensively they’re very intelligent, wellcoached. You get to the second round of the tournament that’s what you’re going to run into.”
Now the Wildcats have some tourney experience to take on that challenge.
“It was good for us to get that first game under our belts and play well,” Robinson-Earl said.