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Villanova Wildcats

2018 NCAA tournament: No upsets here; top-seeded Villanova rolls over Alabama

Erik Brady
USA TODAY

PITTSBURGH — Villanova played a tight first half with Alabama Saturday. The crowd buzzed with excitement. Top seed Virginia had gone down the night before.

Villanova Wildcats guard Mikal Bridges launches a jumper.

Might another One bite the dust?

Uh, no. The Wildcats came out in the second half and broke the game wide open with deep threes and thundering dunks, all triggered by a smothering, turnover-forcing defense. The Cats led by just 32-27 at the half but poured in 49 second-half points on the way to their 81-58 win.

“Really good game for us,” Villanova coach Jay Wright said. “We played well.”

That’s bad news for the rest of the field. The Wildcats just might be the favorite now to win a second national championship in three years. They’ll play the Marshall-West Virginia winner on Friday in Boston in the Sweet 16.

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Virginia’s historic loss to UMBC, the first for a top seed against a 16-seed in the men's tournament, was in the air even in the postgame news conference.

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“We had to make sure coming in today — there was a lot of attention with that,” Villanova guard Donte DiVincenzo said. “We’re a No. 1 seed so it was more attention for us. We just had to make sure we played Villanova basketball.”

The Wildcats did, by firing three-pointers with abandon. They hit 17 of 41, including 10 of 21 in the second half.

“You got to bring it every night,” guard Mikal Bridges said. “You can be beaten. That’s why we play 40 minutes of Villanova basketball against anybody. You could be a 16 seed, you could be a No. 1 seed. We play our way.”

The Villanova way has now rolled up at least 32 wins in four consecutive seasons, a Division I first.

“That’s good to know,” Wright said. “I’ll pretend like I did.”

Bridges scored 23 points and hit five of eight from three. DiVencenzo scored 18 and was 5-for-11 from three. Jalen Brunson scored 12 and was 3-for-6 from three.

“They were really prolific from behind the three-point line,” Alabama coach Avery Johnson said. “They are tough ... when they are making threes at that rate.”

Freshman guard Collin Sexton led Alabama with 17 points. He also picked up a technical foul. Sexton declined to say afterward if he will enter the NBA draft. Johnson said he’d love for everyone who plays for him at Alabama to graduate, but that he’ll offer advice based on the best interest of an individual player and his family.

“We like to recruit kids that maybe have that talent that can get them to the professional ranks earlier than later,” he said. “But we’re not holding any of our players back. We feel that we want to serve them. We’re not here to use them. We’re here to serve them and whatever’s best for them and their family, that’s what we’re going to recommend.”

The score was 29-27 for Villanova when, just before halftime, DiVincenzo hit a deep three — and it led to a second half of more of the same.

“The one they made there right before the end of the first half, we’re in their face,” Johnson said. “And the guy steps back and makes” it.

Villanova has the nation’s highest-scoring offense at 87.2 points a game coming into the tournament. But Wright and his players say defense is what makes their offense go. That second-half scoring spurt is a prime example.

“If we get a stop, we kick it up,” Bridges said. “We attack. But it wasn’t just mainly go out there and try to score real quick, but it all came from our defense. … Long rebounds, kick ahead and find open shooters. Our defense started that.”

Wright said sometimes shots fall and sometimes they don’t, but defense should always be a constant.

“We knew they were going to make a run and they were going to hit us early,” DiVincenzo said of that tight first half. “So we just had to withstand that initial hit, and then once we got comfortable out there with each other, we started defending at a higher rate. And I just think we wore down their men.”

Time for the rest of the field to take notice. Villanova is defending and firing threes.

“They know what they’re doing,” Johnson said. “Obviously, in the second half, when the game got out of hand, it looked like they were a team that has played deep in the NCAA tournament, and obviously with that championship pedigree.”

 

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