BIG CATS PREVAIL
’NOVA CRUSHES CREIGHTON FOR TITLE
The symmetry was too perfect. It made too much sense for the Big East Tournament to end any other way.
The same week the ACC Tournament came to New York City, and the Big East’s old guard teams came with it, there was Villanova owning the new Big East Tournament. Saturday night, the topseeded Wildcats hardly broke a sweat, rolling to their second conference tournament title in three years, 74-60, over No. 6 Creighton at a sold-out Garden.
As much as the Big East now is newcomers like Creighton and Xavier and Butler, it is Villanova and everyone else. Like Kansas in the Big 12. Coach Jay Wright’s team gave the league much-needed credibility by winning last year’s national championship, and they seem poised to return to the Final Four.
Nobody has benefited from realignment more than the Wildcats. The final three years of the old Big East, the Wildcats struggled by their standards, failing to finish higher than seventh or winning an NCAA Tournament game. Now, “Let’s go Nova” may as well be the league’s new anthem.
Villanova has become the beasts of the new Big East, winning four straight regular season titles, going a stupefying 63-9.
“I think the group of players that we had at the time it changed were ready to be really good whatever conference we were in,” coach Jay Wright said. “I think it just exhilarated everybody.”
Less than 24 hours after edging No. 5 Seton Hall — its Big East Tournament nemesis — Villanova toyed with Creighton, its elite four-out attack doing whatever it wanted. Tournament MVP Josh Hart keyed a 20-7 run to close the first half with 10 of his 29 points, and Kris Jenkins (14 points) scored consecutive baskets to start the second stanza, pushing the Villanova lead to 40-22. The rest of the evening was a coronation, a Wildcats informercial of play-making, crisp ball movement and stifling defense that has made coach Wright’s team so dominant the last four years. They have developed a brand.
“Play hard, play together with pride, doing every little thing for each other,” is how sophomore forward Eric Paschall described “Villanova basketball.” Hart, a National Player of the Year candidate, is known for getting into teammates in blowouts for not giving enough effort.
It is easy to forget, Villanova isn’t even operating at full capacity. It will enter the NCAA Tournament 31-3 and is the second-ranked team in the country despite sixth man Phil Booth, so key in last year’s title run, hardly playing because of a knee injury, and elite freshman Omari Spellman only able to practice, unable to play, after being ruled a partial qualifier by the NCAA eligibility center.
So, what changed? Obviously the new Big East isn’t the same as the old one. The opponents are weaker. And, truth to be told, Villanova hadn’t exactly fallen off before the old Big East broke up. The Wildcats reached the Final Four in 2009, and reached the NCAA Tournament eight of the final nine years of the former Big East. But they weren’t the class of the league, either, as they are now.
“You got to give it to Jay and them. They took full advantage of it, and they’ve been delivering,” Notre Dame coach Mike Brey said in a phone interview. “When all of us left the Big East, I remember our staff talking. We were saying, watch Villanova own this thing, and they certainly have. Of the remaining programs in the league, they were the most established.”
Recruiting has improved as the victories have piled up. Though Villanova is known for developing quality recruits into elite players, it has begun to attract top notch prospects. It beat out the likes of Ohio State, Florida, Kentucky, and Indiana for Spellman. Villanova landed Paschall, a key reserve on this year’s team, beating out Providence, Florida and Kansas. Brunson, a five-star recruit like Spellman, chose Villanova over Temple, Michigan and Purdue.
“Winning helps you get the right players,” associate head coach Baker Dunleavy said. “We feel like our success over the last few years has peaked the interest of the kids we would like to get — competitors who want to win.”
It’s the Villanova way.