Wildcats find the range, serve notice
PITTSBURGH — Jay Wright had some late-night restlessness because he could not turn off the TV as long as Virginia and UMBC were still playing. He met his Villanova team in the morning, and the players at the breakfast tables were buzzing over basketball’s biggest upset.
The reverberation from the 16over-1 stunner was felt by another NCAA Tournament top seed.
“There was a lot of attention with that,” guard Donte DiVincenzo said. “We’re a 1 seed, so it was more attention for us.”
In the March spotlight, Villanova showed how a No. 1 seed takes care of business.
Mikal Bridges hit five 3-pointers, scored 23 points and helped Villanova put the field on notice that it’s the team to beat with an 8158 win over ninth-seeded Alabama on Saturday.
The Wildcats (32-4) are in the Sweet 16 for the first time since they won the 2016 national championship. Bridges, Jalen Brunson, Phil Booth — and yes, The Big Ragu — look every bit the favorite to make it two in three years.
Villanova plays Friday in Boston against the Marshall-West Virginia winner.
“My good vibes are coming from how this team’s playing, how unselfishly they play,” Wright said. A second-half rhythm
The sport is still buzzing from top-seeded Virginia’s 20-point loss to 16th-seeded UMBC.
Alabama (20-16) failed to make it two No. 1 seeds KO’d in less than 24 hours.
After a tense first half in a round that has given the program fits, the Wildcats hit their first six 3s in the second and put on a thrashing.
Bridges, who averaged 17.9 points and played his way into a likely NBA draft lottery pick, scored one point and missed all five shots in the first half. He found his groove once the second half tipped, however. Bridges scored the first five points of the half and then finished a thunderous alleyoop on a pass from Booth that made it 41-27 and sent the Wildcats wildly waving their arms in celebration heading into a timeout.
Bridges hit his first three 3s in succession to cap an 18-1 run, and a Sweet 16 berth was in sight.
“I just had to play aggressive, play tougher,” he said.
Brunson added a 3-pointer — one of a school-tournament record 17 3s — to make it 56-31 and the rest of the half was simply a countdown to Boston.
“There’s a youthful exuberance with this team that is exciting me,” Wright said. Bucking the trend
The Wildcats’ toughest nemesis was more the round than the team: Villanova lost in the first weekend as a 1 or 2 seed in 2010, 2014, 2015 and 2017.
Villanova got a brief scare that it might add 2018 to the list against Alabama.
The Wildcats live and die by the 3-pointer — they say, “shoot em’ up and sleep in the streets” — and when it’s on, look out. The Wildcats are as dangerous as any team in the nation.
“We just had to withstand that first initial hit, and then, once we got comfortable out there with each other, we started defending at a higher rate,” said DiVincenzo, the redheaded guard nicknamed “The Big Ragu.” “I just think we wore down their men.”