I had to attend a funeral today, and as a result I missed the first half. As a result, won't be doing a full write-up, as obviously I wouldn't be able to do so intelligently. Instead, we'll just highlight a few key points and I'll pass along some quotes from coach Neptune.
The biggest takeaway is that Nova was really hurt by rebounding Saturday night. St. John's pounded Villanova on the glass 44-28, with 17 of those 44 coming on the offensive end. St. John's pulled down an astonishing 51.5% of its offensive rebound opportunities (entered the game grabbing 38%). That's just way too high, and against good teams you simply can't give away that many extra opportunities or squander good defensive possessions. It also played a role in the next point.
The free-throw disparity was insane. Now, I'll preface this with a couple things...one, the officiating was pretty poor at both ends and two, a fair amount of the calls against Nova came after the Cats had allowed one (or more) offensive rebounds, so you could argue that if Nova had done a better job on the glass it could have cut into this disparity a little bit. But none of that changes the fact that there was an astonishing disparity in the calls made against each team. Villanova was called for 29 fouls to 16 on St. John's. St. John's took 39(!!!) free throws to Villanova's 17. RJ Luis Jr. attempted more free throws (20) than the entire Villanova team. I can't remember the last time a single player got more FTA than an entire opponent. I know people like to say they don't like to blame officiating, but sometimes it's impossible to ignore. Yes, the officials were atrocious both ways, and no, officiating is not the sole reason Villanova lost this game, but St. John's clearly go the better of a poor whistle...to a near remarkable degree.
Villanova did reasonably well taking care of the ball against a team that is known for forcing turnovers, committing just 10 and actually having an 11-10 lead in points off turnovers. The Cats also continued to shoot the three well, hitting 38.5% and earning a nine-point advantage from beyond the arc.
Nova didn't get enough help from its secondary players. Only three Cats (Dixon, Poplar, Brickus) scored in double figures and the other five who played combined for just 15 points. That's simply not enough support, especially as opponents begin to increase the focus on taking away Dixon, and to a lesser extent Poplar. At least one of Longino and Parker is going to have to more consistently pick up the slack, and the rest of the rotation has to do more than it did on Saturday.
Finally, Brickus' important was highlighted today. While he got off to a hot start offensively, hitting his first four shots for 11 points, he finished with 13 points on 4-9 shooting. More importantly, he had just three assists and an uncharacteristic three turnovers. His ability to take care of the ball, orchestrate the offense and get the ball to his teammates in prime positions has been a major factor in Nova's recent run of strong play, and it's not a coincidence the Cats struggled with Brickus not performing the way we have grown accustomed to him doing.
Villanova will look to get back on track Tuesday when it travels to Xavier.
Here are some postgame quotes from Neptune:
“Give St. John’s a lot of credit. They came in, set the tone, I thought they played extremely hard. They got into us defensively. Lot of credit goes to them. Proud of our guys, thought we fought throughout the entire game but just give those guys credit for the win.”
“They got guys who are long, athletic, tough and they just go get them (rebounds).”
“They’re a good defensive team. I think our issues were on the defensive end more than anything. We had some makeable shots.”
“I thought we just didn’t get the stops we needed at the times we need to get them. This is the Big East. Every team’s tough, every team’s well-coached, has great players. If you don’t come out and defend the way you need to, can’t get stops at key times you’re not gonna have the results you want.”
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