Day 2 highlights from NCAA Tournament
Wildcats face Wisconsin in second round
BUFFALO, N.Y. >> Darryl Reynolds, Eric Paschall and Dylan Painter played a combined 41 minutes in Villanova’s 76-56 triumph over Mount St. Mary’s in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament Thursday night.
That may seem like a lot of playing time, but it wasn’t when you compare it to their combined season average, which is 51 minutes per game.
Paschall saw the most time. The 6-7 forward played 24 minutes and finished with 10 points. The 6-9 Reynolds was on the floor for just 16 minutes. Foul trouble had something to do with that as Reynolds finished with four personal fouls, but the pace of the game played a key role, too. However, Reynolds did manage to grab six boards in his limited time on the floor. Painter, a 6-10 freshman who has come on strong recently, got into the game at the end for one minute. Why the drop off? Simple, the Wildcats did not need their big men as much against the much smaller, quicker Mountaineers.
“Yesterday was kind of tough
“We couldn’t find two drastically opposite opponents. Mount St. Mary’s was the smallest, quickest team we’ve played all year and Wisconsin will be the biggest, strongest team we play all year. ” – Villanova head coach Jay Wright
because they had a lot of little guards and it would have been difficult to stay in front of them,” Painter said.
The odds are pretty good that the top-seeded Wildcats (32-3) will need their big men when they take on No. 8 seed Wisconsin (26-9) Saturday in the second round at the KeyBank Center (approximately 2:40 p.m., CBS).
The Badgers are far from a bunch of mighty mites. They’re a Big Ten team in every way. They have good size up front in 6-10 sophomore Ethan Happ and 6-8 seniors Nigel Hayes and Vitto Brown.
“We couldn’t find two drastically opposite opponents,” Villanova coach Jay Wright said. Mount St. Mary’s “was the smallest, quickest team we’ve played all year and Wisconsin will be the biggest, strongest team we play all year.”
So expect to see more of Reynolds, Paschall and Painter on Saturday. They’re ready for the challenge.
“No matter what happens we have to be ready for any team, big, small, quick, slow, it doesn’t matter,” Paschall said. “We have to be ready for anything.”
“That’s the nature of a season,” Reynolds said. “I was injured at one point this season. Guys were playing more and playing different positions more than they had to, that’s the season, making adjustments. I think the teams that have made it to this point of the year, they know how to make adjustments.
“We talk about attitude all the time. That’s part of attitude. It’s what you have to do to keep moving forward.”
The Wildcats have become quite good at making adjustments on short notice, which is what they will have to do to reach the Sweet 16 for the second year in a row. They played three different styles in three days to win the Big East Tournament title and faced the same kind of challenge in the NCAA Tournament last year when Villanova took on UNC-Asheville in the first round and Iowa in the second round.
“That’s the great thing about playing the schedule we play,” senior forward Kris Jenkins said. “In the Big East we play against teams that play big guys and then made substitutions and go small, and in the nonconference games we play against a lot of different styles. We try to prepare for the most difficult situations and our coaches do a great job getting us ready for every situation.”
“This is our 35th game so that’s really not a problem,” Wright said. “Our guys are good at preparing on one day.”
The biggest challenge in going to a bigger lineup is that it can cost the Wildcats on the offensive end. Paschall is the only true offensive threat. He’s averaging 7.2 points per game and does have 3-point range. Reynolds scores at a 4.6 clip and Painter tallies less than one point per game.
Wright likes to go big when he feels the Wildcats need more size on the boards and the defensive end. To get that look, though, means he has to take Jenkins, Mikal Bridges or Jalen Brunson out of the game.
“You have to hope that we can get some offensive rebounds,” Wright said. “When you play a bigger lineup like that you had better make sure you get stops and hope you get some offensive rebounds. It’s big.”
It’s going to be a challenge, but the Wildcats are used to that. They’ve had a target on their backs since winning it all last year in Houston.