I Bleed Blue and White

If you missed the game check out the recap and box score, although I don’t blame you if you don’t want to.

All good things must come to end as the saying goes, but I don’t think anyone expected them to come to an end with a big kick to the groin. Villanova looked totally unfocused from the start en route to their worst beating of the season, a 21 point shellacking at the hands of Da’Sean Butler, who had a career high 43 points.

Hold on one second, Mike Patrick just let me know that was West Virginia’s biggest game of the season and they were playing like it.

Okay, back to the column. Look, we all knew Butler was their best player, and he was going to get his (although Pittsburgh held him to 4 last time out, which makes this even worse), but I could have never imagined him going for 30, much less 40. And the worst part? He wasn’t even going to play after injuring his ankle in practice.

Regardless, he was only one of the Wildcats’ problems. I was really concerned with the fact that Villanova had seemingly forgotten how to play defense the past 3 games. They seemed more intent on scoring than stopping their opponent, which is atypical of a Jay Wright-coached team. And low and behold when they run into a great defensive team and their shots aren’t falling, it was apparently obvious that they had forgotten how to grind out a game, letting the Mountaineers just run away from them.

It started early when Dante Cunningham picked up 2 silly offensive fouls in the first few minutes (by the way, Alex Ruoff is officially challenging Greg Paulus for biggest flopper in the NCAA), sending him to the bench for the rest of the half, but I thought he performed admirably even though he was a non-factor. Reggie Redding also played hard, he just wasn’t very good.

Antonio Pena and Scottie Reynolds looked like they had no interest in even being at the game. Pena was a main culprit of not boxing out giving up what seemed like 200 offensive rebounds (the official tally of 11 is way off). Reynolds had no idea what to do with a big defender on him, so his official strategy was barrel into the lane and hope to get bailed out by the refs.

If it isn’t for the play of Corey Fisher and Corey Stokes, Villanova would have lost by 50. It was that bad. 

But you know what? Whatever,this is actually a blessing in disguise in my mind. While it stinks to get embarrassed like that, the team needed this. They weren’t going to get by on just playing offense for the rest of the year. They needed a wake up call so they can re-commit to playing great D, which is what they originally built themselves on.

Rutgers comes to The Pavilion for Senior Night next Thursday, which should be a perfect remedy for last night. With the long layoff before the next game, the team is going to have a hardworking week I’d imagine, which is going to be good for them.

With the loss, Villanova pretty much took away any chance of a double-bye in the Big East Tournament, but that is okay. They need to refocus and come out and blast Rutgers next week. While this loss hurts now, in the grand scheme of this season it’s not a big deal.

Shake this one off ‘Nova Nation, West Virginia just had their backs to the wall and was nobody was beating them last night.

And why did the students rush the court?