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Villanova broke the DePaul press and took advantage of some easy shots to down the Blue Demons of DePaul, 87-71 — their first win of the Big East season. Villanova took the lead on the first possession on an old-fashioned three-point play by Mouphtaou Yarou. The ‘Cats held on, going to 10-0 by the first TV timeout. DePaul wasn’t going to give up, and got as close as 1 point in the middle of the first half before Villanova pulled away again.

“We were prepared. We just wanted to keep getting better,” head coach Jay Wright said about the victory.

Wright started Ty Johnson and Markus Kennedy and left them on the court for 33 and 34 minutes respectively. The only player who spent more time in the game was Maalik Wayns, who had 35 minutes of action.

“We were trying to get to this [lineup] gradually,” Wright said. “When I say try to get to this, I mean get another ball-handler in there with Maalik to take some pressure off.

“Ty just wasn’t ready, I guarantee he’s not 100% yet, I mean of what he’s going to be.”

“We still play him at the point some, and then get Darrun Hilliard off the bench too because he can play both spots. We were trying to get to this point, but Ty wasn’t ready, he had to earn it, and also Markus [Kennedy] and JayVaughn [Pinkston] had to get there and earn it. That’s how you do it in our program and I think they’ve earned those spots.”

Pinkston played 18 minutes for the Wildcats off of the bench and scored 13 points to be one of four players who broke into double-digits on the team. The others were Wayns, who led with 21 points, Cheek with 20, and Yarou with 14.

“This was a good line-up for us. This is what we were trying to get to.”

Wayns was very positive about Johnson’s contributions at the point, where he had a team-high 5 assists (all in the first half) and 2 steals.

“I’m like a scorer at heart,” Wayns said with a chuckle. “He helps me, he’s a great point guard who can get me shots, and that allows me to get off the ball and get up shots and still get other people shots.”

Villanova held a 48-36 lead at half-time, but their offensive production declined a bit in the second half as the ‘Cats tried to slow the game to let the clock run out. After connecting on 62.5% of their field goals and 66.7% from deep in the first half, the ‘Cats went 0-4 from downtown in the second half and shot just 50% from the field.

Despite going just 13-for-26 in the second half, the ‘Cats made 92.9% of their free-throws after the intermission and 79.4% for the game. They scored 27 points at the charity stripe with Yarou and Pinkston getting 6 free throws each and combining to make all but one. More importantly, Villanova’s guards made half of the team’s trips to the line by driving to the hoop, scoring 15 points from there.

“Most of the game they were pressing us, but we were breaking the press and taking it up for lay-ups,” Cheek told reporters. “You know if our shots aren’t falling, we’re still going to continue take them or we can drive to the basket and make plays.”

While Villanova had 34 attempts from the free-throw line, the Blue Demons took just 17.

The Blue Demons were handcuffed on defense with five players with four or more fouls during the game. Key players like Cleveland Melvin and Derrell Robertson picked up their 4th fouls early in the second half and Robertson ultimately fouled out. The foul margin — DePaul had 29 to Villanova’s 18 — didn’t trouble Oliver Purnell, however.

“We press and turned them over 28 times as well, that may account for some of that disparity,”  he noted.

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Jay Wright was impressed by the fast pace of the game that helped force his team to cough the ball up on 28 occasions.

“That’s them. I give them a lot of credit, they were 17 [assists] and 14 [turnovers], they’re good that way and they’re used to playing that way,” Wright noted. “We don’t mind playing that way.

“It kind of forced us to just play basketball and not run cuts, because they don’t let you.”

Despite the turnovers, DePaul was not able to take advantage. Villanova got back quickly on defense and the Blue Demons connected on just 38.2% of their shots and only 29.6% from beyond the arc.

They finished with just two players scoring in double digits, Brandon Young, who led the way with 22 points and Cleveland Melvin, who contributed 19 points. Young also produced a team-high 6 assists, while backup point guard Worrel Clahar dropped 5 more dimes to account for 11 of DePaul’s 17 assists.

“These guys really, defensively, did a great job getting the team playing,” Wright said of his juniors. “We held them to 38 [percent shooting] and did a real great job rebounding.”

Wright wouldn’t accept it as an excuse that the Wildcats had to integrate new players into the line-up as the reason for their defensive woes this season, but he did say it was a challenge without a lot of veteran leadership. Communication and teamwork are important factors in playing effective teamwork, and while Villanova hasn’t been very good at it so far this season, they did a good job of it today.

Villanova held DePaul to about 85% of their normal offensive production, allowing just 0.89 points per possession to the Blue Demons. Villanova, meanwhile, was close to its season average of 0.109 points per possession, scoring 0.108 today.

Getting things right within the family – USF Redux

“The thing about the USF game was that we were getting better and we took a step back,” Wright said. “We needed to get things right within our family.”

Asked to expand upon getting things “right” in the family, the coach attempted to explain the events that caused his two junior guards to sit at the outset of the previous game.

“This is simple, just that we’re asking Maalik and Mouph and Cheeko, we’re asking them to act like you’re a senior, and practice every day like seniors, like we always have with our seniors. And we tell them its hard and you’re not ready for it yet, but we’re going to try to teach you fast and we’re going to ask you to do it fast.

“That was thing with the South Florida game. They didn’t do anything, we just had a film session, I said we needed to do some things in practice. They didn’t do it the way I wanted them to as leaders.

“Being a leader is a lot of responsibility and it’s a privilege to start.”

Villanova is 0-3 in Big East play for the first time since 1980-81, the program’s first in the conference. That team finished 8-6 in the conference and tied for third in the conference, and with a 12-5 record in non-conference play they earned an NCAA tournament berth. This Villanova team, however, doesn’t quite have the same non-conference resume. In other words, the ‘Cats have likely already played their way out of the only postseason tournament that America cares about.

DePaul is a school that knows plenty about being in the basement of the Big East. Since entering the Big East in 2005-06, their best finish has been in ninth-place and have finished dead-last more than once.

This season, however, the Blue Demons look much improved, coming into the game with a 10-4 record, including a 1-1 conference mark. They took down a struggling Pittsburgh team in Chicago on Thursday to open their Big East account early this season. Oliver Purnell has begun to bring the program back to life.

He has three main scoring threats, with Cleveland Melvin leading the way at 18.9 points per game and Brandon Young a close second with 16.8. Jeremiah Kelly scores 10.2 points on average and also contributes a team-high 4.1 assists per contest.

Overall DePaul is an above-average offensive team that scores about 1.05 points per possession. They shoot 33.8% from the perimeter, which is just below the Division-1 average.  That is about the same percentage that Villanova’s opponents have shot from distance. Their biggest threat from distance has been Kelly, who has made 39.2% of his attempts. Jamee Crockett has connected on 38.2% and Moses Morgan has made 36% to round out the Blue Demons who have shot better than average.

Their defense ranks 232nd in the nation, but they have been much better at defending the perimeter than defending inside. Opponents have connected on just 29.5% from outside while  from 2-point range, they have scored 51.1% of the time.

Villanova is likely to struggle again. While many took some positives from the Wildcats’ first two Big East games, which they kept close for about 75 minutes in all, the South Florida result  was a wake-up call. Villanova does not appear to be ready for the challenges of Big East play this season.

Neither the Villanova defense nor the offense has really clicked so far.

Defensively, Nova has allowed its opponents to get good looks from outside and benefit from matador-style plays inside, especially when they go “small.” The commitment to defensive effort that has existed on past successful teams seems to have dissipated completely. The ‘Cats will need to upgrade their dedication on that side of the ball if they hope to compete in their remaining games.

Good defense will aid a reeling offense as well. Villanova has done well scoring in transition before opponents can get their defense set. Those transition plays are more likely after a turnover, of course.

Most notably, however, Villanova has performed impossibly bad shooting from the perimeter.  Villanova lacks a true threat from outside and though Jay Wright was hoping that having multiple players taking shots from deep could help, it has only seemed to cripple the offense more. Often times, players can be spotted taking a 3-point jumper after just one pass, early in the shot clock, while they aren’t open or before they are squared to the basket. Few of those shots go in. Against USF, the ‘Cats grabbed so few offensive rebounds that those shots were essentially the equivalent of handing the ball to the other team.

Worse, however, is Villanova’s unimaginative zone offense. Opponents will continue to heavily use zone defenses against the team until they begin to look confident an capable in attacking the zone. In the recent past, players like Corey Stokes have been key to Villanova’s zone offense, shooting over the zone to take advantage of the scheme’s weakness.

Instead, Villanova needs to learn how to use the high post to get an advantage against zone schemes that tend to leave it open. Most of the time, against the zone, getting the ball to the high post using a dribble-drive or a quick pass to a big man moving up or a guard cutting in, allows you to get the ball into an uncovered portion of the key and disrupt the scheme. Villanova seems to keep the ball on the perimeter in these situations and often looks confused.

It isn’t just scheme, however. Villanova played well for the first 5 minutes or so against USF, before Maalik Wayns and Dominic Cheek returned to the line-up. Despite being two of the team’s leading scorers, it seems that the Ewing Theory is in full force when either or both are on the court. Both take an large percent of the team’s total shots in each game, and both seem to be largely inefficient when doing so. When the freshmen players were left to their own resources, giving the ball to Wayns or Cheek to take the shot was not an option; they had to share the ball and create shots for each other.

In other words: Villanova needs to get some confidence and some chemistry in place if they are going to learn how to win, especially if they need to win without the 3-ball.

Sunday’s match-up with DePaul will likely be a tougher game than anyone had it pegged for prior to the season. Ken Pomeroy’s statistical models predicts a Villanova win with 80% certainty — it was even more certain that USF would lose, however.

The game tips off at Noon on Sunday, January 8th at the Pavilion and will be broadcast locally on WPHL-17 and nationally on ESPN3.com.

The senior point guard hit a game tying 3-pointer in the waning seconds of regulation to tie the game and send the #14 Wildcats to overtime… against the worst team in the Big East.

Playing without Corey Stokes, Jay Wright’s club found difficulty in making shots while the Blue Demons made a scorching 13 3-Pointers. Maalik Wayns added 17 points and Mouphtaou Yarou had a double-double with 12 points and 15 rebounds.

Villanova next hosts Syracuse on Monday.

DePaul has been epically bad in the Big East, but despite that, every year they have taken advantage of the one or two teams that overlook them. They may not have Big East level talent across the board like some of their conference foes, but they do have enough focus to take advantage of opportunities that are given to them.

According to KenPom, the three areas of DePaul’s game where they have been above-average this season are turnover percentage (where they turn the ball over less than the national average and their opponents turn it over more), 3-point defense, and steal percentage (again, an area where they are strong on both offense and defense).

DePaul leads the Big East with the highest percentage of scoring coming from their freshmen. Oliver Purnell is clearly getting some production out of young guns like Cleveland Melvin and Brandon Young. Those are the top-two scorers for the Blue Demons — both freshmen — and only one other player averages double-digit points, sophomore Tony Freeland.

Melvin is clearly the go-to guy in this offense, and the freshman forward averages 13.9 points per game as well as 5 rebounds. The guard, Young, records around 12.3 points per game as well as adding 3.7 assists, 2.6 rebounds and shooting about 33.3% from deep. Sophomore forward Freeland averages 10ppg and 4.6 rebounds

Neither Melvin, nor Freeland has attempted more than one shot from beyond the arc this season, and neither connected on their attempt.

Oliver Purnell is a coach with over 400 wins in his career — if he can’t build this DePaul team into something, nobody can.

Though it has been easier for opponents to score against DePaul from inside the arc this season, the ‘Cats should make an effort to keep some shooters on the floor. By having a three-point threat on the court, you prevent the defense from collapsing into the paint and keep the inside scoring open. I like the idea of giving James Bell heavy minutes again in this match-up for that reason. Without Corey Stokes available, Bell is the best three-point threat on the team (over 40% from beyond the arc and absolutely deadly on Tuesday), and either he or Corey Fisher should be on the floor at all times.

Beyond that, the ‘Cats will need to continue to see production from Mouph Yarou and Antonio Pena as well. Both have the potential to be tremendous scoring options, and Yarou is often the best option in the paint for this team. Against a team that been less-effective guarding the inside, it is important to take advantage of the opportunities.

Though Villanova overcame 20+ turnovers to beat Seton Hall on Tuesday night, they can’t even allow that high rate of turnovers to continue. The ‘Cats need much better play from the point guard position, to protect the ball and allow them to control the game.

The game will tip-off at NOON, eastern standard time from Chicago. Television coverage will be available locally on WPVI as well as ESPN3.com, and will be the Big East game of the week on SNY.

Don’t forget to get your entries in for Closest to the Pin!

Also, check out my Q&A with Blue Demon’s Lair and my answers for ChicagoNow.com.

I answered questions for John Templeton of Chicago College Basketball this week. Be sure to check those out as well.

Feeble-minded people produce feeble-minded results. Welcome to the DePaul athletic department. Our AD and her staff could take an opportunity like joining the Big East and turn our men’s program into a below-average Horizon League team. Even saying her name upsets me, so I will refrain from doing so.

This wonderful woman extended Wainwright’s contract after a run in the NIT, gave him a vote-of-confidence after going winless in the Big East, tried to force him to resign and eventually fired him. Meanwhile, she’s the same dingbat that has kept her job while running the men’s program into the ground.

Purnell was a good hire, but there really wasn’t much choice. Frankly, I cannot wait for the day she gets fired. I will celebrate the liberation of our athletic department from her incompetent clutches.

Our younger players are promising. Our older players are dead weight. When we get some more talent in here, and it’s coming, things should improve. We’ve got nowhere to go but up.

It’s hard for me to say for sure, but I would say it’s highly unlikely.

Up-tempo and full court pressure. DePaul will miss a lot of shots and force some turnovers. This isn’t a dull DePaul team to watch, just painful to cheer for…Cleveland Melvin and Brandon Young are good players, and the rest we just hope don’t suck too bad. Enjoy a competitive six to seven minutes of basketball.

Screw him. I hope he gets attacked by a gator.

Tough question to answer. I think he will work hard and try to get many more, but it will take a ton of effort. He’s got six years left after this one, so hopefully he gets a bunch.

Many of you young fans don’t realize how huge DePaul basketball was in the early ’80s. Games were sold out and WGN broadcasted the games all over the country. So this program has potential to be huge. Plus, the Big East is a draw for anyone. Clemson is a football school, and I think Purnell realized that he did a wonderful job building the basketball program. This is a true challenge, but the results could be limitless.

I would like to see us win at least one game over a good team. I would like to see the kids continue to develop. There’s hope, and that’s better than it’s been in a long time.

I plead the fifth.

Update:  Saturday, February 19 (Game Results).

VUHoops vs. Vegas:  Based on the average predicted scores of the VUHoops Crowd and the posted Vegas line, we would have lost $100 by betting the Over (loss).  The details follow.  With the  loss, we drop to +$500 for the season.

Leader Board After 27 Rounds

Update:  Saturday, February 19 (Game Time). A total of 60 VUHoops readers  posted predictions, none picking the Blue Demons to win.  As a group, the readers see ‘Nova winning by a score of 75-63 (a margin of 12.0 points and implied over/under of 138).  The Vegas odds makers also are picking ‘Nova to win by 12.0 points but  set the over/under higher at 141.5 points, implying a final score of 77-65.  KenPom.com’s model is predicting Nova to win by 15.0 points by a score of 80-65.

Scatter Plot of Predicted Scores

Window Opening:  Thursday, February 17 (8:00 PM). The window is now open for readers to post their predicted final scores for ‘Nova’s game at DePaul on Saturday at 12 Noon (ET) in our Closest to the Pin Contest.  After twenty-six rounds, Barney Rubble and Hugh Jass remain tied for the lead with 21.0 points.  Click here to see our updated leader board.  In our VUHoops vs. Vegas competition, VUHoops is up $600 for the season.

The #15 Cats (20-6, 8-5) have an RPI of 21, a SOS of 31, and are scoring an average of 74.1 PPG while giving up an average of 63.5 PPG.  The Blue Demons (6-18, 0-12) are not ranked, have an RPI of 225, a SOS of 35, and are scoring an average of 67.9 PPG while giving up an average of 74.6.

The margin of defeat for DePaul’s twelve Big East losses are detailed below.   More statistical information about DePaul is available at Statsheet.com.

KenPom.com’s model is predicting Nova to win by 15.0 points by a score of 80-65.

Be sure to check out Brian’s game preview.

Special Note:  When posting scores, please remember to list your predicted score for Villanova first, followed by the opponent’s score (e.g., ‘Nova 70 – DePaul 65).

Freshman Maalik Wayns added 18 as the Wildcats opened up a 25-point lead at the half and never looked back.

‘Nova shot 55.4% from the floor (36-65) including 10-25 from distance (40%). The Wildcats out-rebounded the Blue Demons 38 to 21.

Taylor King added 15 and Reggie Redding contributed 10 points in the winning effort. The victory extends Villanova’s winning streak at the Pavilion to 34 games.

Mouph Yarou had 4 points and 3 rebounds in his return to game-play after being diagnosed with Hepatitis B.

Junior Corey Stokes missed the game as a preventative measure for a strained hamstring. It’s his first missed game as a ‘Cat.

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America’s largest Catholic university (by enrollment) is currently 7-7 on the season, with a somewhat notable win over St. Joes. DePaul has already lost to Pitt and Georgetown this season, it’s only two Big East games. They have now lost 21 consecutive Big East regular-season games. DePaul is in the midst of yet another below-par season by Big East standards… heck, by CAA standards…

Villanova shouldn’t have any trouble with this DePaul squad. They were the pre-season favorites to finish dead-last in the conference and are so-far living up to that prediction. In Villanova, PA, the only hope the Blue Demon’s have is that the students are still on break and the crowd may be somewhat quiet.

In a recent poll of college basketball teams in Illinois, DePaul ranked 7th. Behind Illinois, Northwestern, Illinois State, Southern Illinois, Loyola and Bradley.

Last year, our Wildcats let DePaul hang around when they met in Chicago. The game ended as a 74-72 win for Villanova. Senior guard Will Walker kept them in the game back then with his three-point shot, and he leads the team currently with 15.6 ppg. Junior big man Mac Koshwal isn’t far behind with 14.7 ppg (he is also averaging 11 rebounds). Koshwal was the only DePaul player to put up double digits in their recent loss to Georgetown. No other player on the team is averaging double-digit points per game.

Hopefully Villanova will put DePaul out of their misery quickly tonight. It is highly doubtful that DePaul will be the team to break the Pavilion win-streak. A good defensive showing will guarantee a win, but the ‘Cats will need to watch out for Walker and Koshwal. The Blue Demons have five players over 6’6″, but only three of those players are averaging more than 10 minutes per game, so there is no real size advantage to speak of in this game.

The rumor on the internet is that Corey Stokes is experiencing some discomfort in his hamstring and may be limited or unable to play. If that is the case, expect Dominic Cheek and Taylor King to pick up the extra minutes.

If Walker gets hot shooting, I would expect to see more of the triangle-and-two defense that Coach Wright has been toying around with lately. Either way, while DePaul is certainly more talented than FDU, Penn, Delaware or Fordham, Jerry Wainwright’s (pre-season superlative: most-likely to be fired) Blue Devils are far from the most worrisome team on the schedule.

Don’t forget to participate in Ed’s Closest to the Pin Contest.

Villanova Fans are invited to purchase a Holiday Gift Package which includes two (2) tickets to the January 6th Men’s Basketball game vs. DePaul at the Pavilion and one (1) “Attitude of a Champion” DVD for only $50. This gift package is only available at the Villanova Ticket Office in the Jake Nevin Fieldhouse on Villanova’s campus, or at the Villanova vs. Delaware game on Wed, December 23rd at the Pavilion.

Hurry, Ticket Office hours for this week are:
Mon, Dec. 21 – 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Tue, Dec. 22 – 9:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Wed, Dec. 23 – 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.