KEEP AN EYE ON

Dizzying Gillespie: Villanova’s Collin Gillespie, who returned for a fifth season after a late-season injury ended his 2020-21 campaign, provides a tricky match-up for the Huskies. Gillespie, a 6-foot-3 point guard, loves to post up and distribute from the low post, leading to either open 3-pointers from his teammates or scores of his own. It gave UConn fits in the teams’ one meeting a year ago, and it could again be a challenge for 6-foot point guard R.J. Cole to guard on Saturday.

“He’s tough,” Dan Hurley said. “He puts you in a bind, you never play against this style. You don’t see it. You get inverted. Your big guys are guarding people away from the basket, off the dribble. Your guards are playing post defense. It’s a tough style to play against.

“We’ve got to be a lot more physical with him,” he continued. “R.J. can’t let him put him under the rim. We’ve got to put bigger bodies on him at different times and try to keep him off balance. But the guy’s a championship-level player.”

You know what’s coming: Villanova’s style is tried-and-true. Opponents know what’s coming, but still have trouble dealing with it.

“It’s hard to stop it,” Hurley said. “They make so few mistakes. They make you truly have to go out and win the game to beat them. You’ve got to limit your mistakes, and you’ve got to make shots and win a lot of one-on-one battles. Because once you start bringing second and third defenders, obviously they generate so much from their 3-point shooting.”

New combinations? On the heels of Tuesday night’s loss to Creighton, in which the Bluejays dared some of UConn’s players to shoot from 3, Hurley is thinking of making some changes on Saturday.

“Get these guys in a little bit earlier, break up some of combinations of groups that have struggled shooting. Maybe get Andre (Jackson) in there more with a shooter on the wing next to him, as opposed to the group too many extended minutes where there’s maybe three guys on the court that the other team isn’t gonna play on the perimeter.”