Loss shows Wildcats still have a lot to learn
NEW YORK >> Jay Wright said Sunday’s showdown with St. John’s at Madison Square Garden was not going to be pretty. He was right on that point.
The Wildcats and Red Storm set the game back more than a few years from an aesthetic point of view, unless, of course, you like an old-fashioned, Big East defensive street fight.
It wasn’t a basketball game as much as a test of wills, stamina, and most importantly, poise. The team with more of those qualities, especially the latter, was going to come out on top.
St. John’s found that poise, storming back from a 19-point deficit in the first half to snap a 12game
home losing streak to Villanova with a shocking 71-65 victory over the
13th-ranked Wildcats in front of 19,812 mostly Red Storm supporters.
No one can remember the last time Villanova blew a double-digit halftime lead let alone a
19-point advantage. The last team to trail at the break and come back and beat Villanova was Furman, but that deficit was only five points, not the
11-point deficit St. John’s carried back to the locker room Sunday.
It would have been 14 had Justin Simon not buried a 70-footer from inside the 3-point line on the other side of the court as the half expired, which ended up lighting a fire under the Red Storm.
“We were screaming the whole way into the locker room,” guard Mustapha Heron said. “We knew that we could come back.”
On the schedule
Carrying that momentum forward required a little calm, and the Red Storm won that battle, too.
Villanova’s shot selection, especially with the lead, was poor. The Wildcats took too many shots early in the shot clock. That’s part of their nature, but on this night it hurt them. It allowed the Red Storm to methodically chip away at the lead.
You have to give St. John’s credit. The Red Storm did turn up the heat on the Wildcats in the second half. Villanova did not get many clean looks and it was evident in the numbers.
Nine of Villanova’s 16 turnovers came in the second half. They shot just
5-for-24 overall and 3-for15 from 3-point range after the break. St. John’s scored 19 points off turnovers, 14 in the second half. The Red Storm also had 21 of their 26 fast break points in the second half.
“They did a good job,” forward Eric Paschall said. “They turned up their intensity and made it difficult for us.”
No one was immune. Although he grabbed a game-high 14 rebounds, Paschall shot 2-for-11, scored 11 points and committed five turnovers. Booth also was 2-for-11 from the field with three turnovers, two in the second half. Collin Gillespie coughed it up four times, three of which came in the final 20 minutes.
Even Wright was not above the fray. He was hit with a technical foul after he lost his cool with 11:40 to play in the game and the Wildcats nursing a 4838 lead. Shamorie Ponds hit both free throws and Heron hit the first of three huge 3-pointers in the second half. Just like that, Villanova’s 10-point lead had been halved.
Wright thought Gillespie had been fouled when he was stripped of the ball less than 12 minutes to play in the game. That steal led to a bucket by L.J. Figueroa, which cut the lead to 10. Wright called time and gave the refs an earful. They returned the favor.
Wright called the technical the turning point in the game. St. John’s scored 33 of the final 50 points to beat the Wildcats at home for the first time since 2003.
“I thought it was a blatant foul and they didn’t call it and I just felt like I needed to say it,” Wright said. “The technical hurt us, it happens sometimes.”
Here’s s the thing: It hasn’t happened at Villanova, at least not that much in the last few years and on the way to two national championships. The Wildcats rarely, if ever, come apart the way they did to the delight of a large portion of the crowd that packed MSG to the rafters. Usually, Villanova is the one applying the pressure that makes the opponent come unglued.
Not this time, though, which shows just how different this team is than the squads that won two of the last three national championships. Those teams were honing their skills by this time of the year in preparation for the Big East and NCAA tournaments. This team is still growing together and learning.
“You don’t want to learn this late in the season, but it’s all you can do now,” Wright said. “You have to give “them credit, learn from it and come back the next day.