I'm no hockey wizard but this Gostisbehere has to be one of the best rookie defenseman I've ever seen. Too bad he wasn't up to start the year. Flyers probably would've made the playoffs.

I know there are a lot of Simpsons fans on the board. I stumbled across this tool that syncs screenshots from every episode with the corresponding dialog. What an age we live in.

https://frinkiac.com/

The wife and I are driving down from NY for the pre-game festivities on Saturday. Haven't been to a pavilion game since UCLA in 2001. That day I was able to get two in front of the pavilion right before tip off. Is that still doable these days? Any chance I might be able to find (buy) two during the festivities as Uncle Ed had suggested? If I strike out completely, which is the best place along Lancaster to watch a game these days? Thanks.

Hi folks,

I lost the lottery for entering in the annual 10-mile race down Broad Street. If anyone has an extra bid number that they are trying to sell or give away, send me a message.

rbn136@yahoo.com

NovaNut has first dibs below.

.....to have had a better NBA career than Kyke Lowry?

The latest in the never ending saga of Rutgers athletics is that freshman Corey Sanders has been suspended for four games. Sanders, I believe, is their leading scorer and a candidate for Big Ten freshman of the year. No details on the reason for the suspension. Another freshman was suspended earlier in the season. They remain winless in the conference and Jordan's job is less than secure. As a resident of the Garden State I used to chuckle at their misfortune but now I can only say "pathetic".

If anyone is looking to get rid of 1 for Butler please email me at newcombrill@yahoo.com. Thanks

Doug Gotllieb on CBS discussing a mock selection committee having OK one and Nova two in the seeding order of top seeds, says he just doesn't see Nova...not buying us. Sounds familiar right? We don't have any good OOC wins, and the BE is not that good.

Gonna be a fun 30 days.

I was in the bookstore on Saturday and there's something I don't understand. We're a Nike school, right? Yet in addition to all the Nike gear for sale, there was quite a bit of Under Armour apparel as well. How does that work? Wouldn't Nike prohibit any competitor from producing Villanova Basketball gear for sale in the school's bookstore when they're paying them for the exclusive rights?

Not to mention Ralph Lauren, Columbia, Vineyard Vines, Champion, some other super-expensive brand I never heard of (mostly golf apparel). There must be 10 different apparel brands selling Villanova clothes in the bookstore.

#1 in the USA Today Coaches Poll...25 1st place votes. 7 for Kansas.
X at 7 and Providence at 20

i am watching Pine Bluff Ark vs Alcorn St. They show the top 10 , note Nova is in second week at #1 and congradulate Jay on doing a great job! No one else in top 10 mentioned. Wow. How many times in the past has that happened? Un-freakin believable! Tom

With apologies to those who don't care about the Big 5, and those who demean it, would a Temple win against us result in a 2-way tie or 3-way tie? Just a curiosity question -- I'm hoping and believing that we rule the Big 5 one more time with a win.

VU #1 seed.

http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/bracketology/_/iteration/230

Zags wrote a nice article on his site today about Omari-------some good stuff there so I think its a worthwhile read.
I would do a link but unfortunately making that happen is not exactly in my wheelhouse , but hopefully someone else can do it.

I really believe that being #1 is a great thing for this team and for mostly any Jay Wright team. Coming into this season, I think that Iand most fans have been pre-occupied with this "Round of 32" thing. I was having a hard time focusing on each game we play and the great teams around us play. The team might have been feeling some of that also - couldn't blame them.

Being #1 now certainly gets me focused on every single game we play. Every game is the Super Bowl carrying the #1 banner. Big pressure on our team every night that we play as #1. That pressure might be helpful when we go into the almighty "Round of 32" game with crazy pressure on us - because we have had national focused pressure on us for at least 4 games of the season carrying the #1 banner (last week's two and this week's two at a miniumum). Also keeps our guys focused on "the next game" even as the "bigger games" are coming. Jay must like this...

Email --- mcandrewdan@yahoo.com

Thanks

So last year's Nova team was generally looked at as balanced, with solid stats on both sides of the ball. We were 4th in the country in "adjusted" offensive efficiency at 120, and 13th in "adjusted" defense at 92.8. Looks good right? But if you look at the raw conference #'s, we were still a very impressive 118 in raw offense, and only 98.5 on defense. Both were good for 1st in the conference, but that is really not a good defensive #, especially in our league where there is not a ton of great offense to defend. Looking even DEEPER, we had 5 conference games (not BET) of better than 90 defensive PPP (28% of games) but 9 games of above 100. Of those 9, 4 were above 110 (22% of all BE games). Our biggest red flag was giving up over 31% of possible offensive rebounds. NC State took advantage, grabbing 39% of O-boards.

Looking at this year though, thru 13 conference games we are averaging a raw 92.1 defensive PPP. 6 of our games (46%) have held teams to under 90 PPP, with only 3 above 100, and 1 above 110. We are also only giving up offensive boards at a rate of 25.3%. These are all dramatic improvements over last year.

Our offensive efficiency is obviously significantly lower verses a year ago due to the 3-point shooting, but if defense truly wins championships, we are certainly better set-up this year than we were a year ago. Given who we lost and added, that is an amazing thing to say.

Just more food for thought on a slow Monday.....

Do we get over 16K? Sellout is highly unlikely but how close can we get?

Get ready for a ton oh hype with our Temple game. I believe it will be the first Big 5 game with #1 team since we played Temple in 88. Even though the local media will be rooting against us, I think it's pretty cool that this game is being played this late in the year. I have a feeling Jay will have the team well prepared and St John's was just us looking last a horrible opponent. We played out D game and the end result was never in doubt.

Lonnie Walker
Dhamir Cosby Roundtree
Scottie Lewis - 2019, NJ, 6'5 Shooting Guard, Phenom

Nova in position to be number one overall seed......

http://www.philly.com/philly/sports...o_be_top_overall_seed_in_NCAA_Tournament.html

... updating the BE Tracker this morning:
https://villanova.n.rivals.com/news/2015-16-big-east-tracker

SHU and Wisconsin are back in the Top 50 of the RPI - giving quality/key wins to Marquette, Georgetown, Villanova and others.

The projected BET now has Creighton and Providence playing in the Quarters with the winner facing the winner of the Villanova against DePaul/Marquette game.
If the bracket held to form and the Cats kept winning the games would be a repeat of last year's BET run for 'Nova. Marquette - Providence - Xavier ... still way early for that but - thought it was interesting.

No BE games until Tuesday night now:
Feb 16 - 7:00 PM CREIGHTON at Butler

A win for Creighton opens the possibility that they get 11 BE wins.
A Butler loss and they will head to the Pavilion next Saturday for Villanova Senior Night at 6-8 in BE play and desperate for a win to stay in reach of a possible .500 BE record. Though they could win @Gtown and then beat SHU and Marquette at home to finish 9-9 in the case where they lose both to Creighton and 'Nova ... they really need the win against Creighton to maximize their chances down the stretch.

It will be interesting to see how Georgetown finishes. Sitting at 7-6 ... three straight home games coming but they are against SHU, X, and Butler. A road trip to Marquette (which will probably have nothing to play for in that game) and then closing the season with a game @ 'Nova. The Hoyas didn't fold when Providence punched them in the mouth yesterday but if SHU gets them and X gets a revenge win against them next Saturday - would they bounce back again from 7-8 to win 2 of the last 3?

It could play out similar to the end of the 2014 season where Georgetown needed a win at Villanova in the last game of the regular season to get to 9-9 and maintain NCAA aspirations and the Cats drilled them by 16 to send the Hoyas to the NIT and finish 16-2 themselves.