PHILADELPHIA– Villanova has barged into the conversation for a Top 10 spot in the AP poll after its dominant performance in Battle 4 Atlantis.
The Cats won this elite tournament for a third time yesterday, taking a 44-16 halftime lead over Memphis, then cruising to a 79-63 victory in the championship game.
Nova also had a dominant win over Texas Tech and an 83-81 overtime victory against ACC Colossus North Carolina in the semi-finals three-day tournament in the Bahamas.
Battle might not have had the overall talent of Maui, but Lea Miller’s tournament always delivers.
Nova (6-1) took all the suspense out of the final, opening the game with a 16-2 run and never relenting. The Cats limited Memphis to just 4 for 27 shooting in a dreadful first half and led by as many as 35 points during the blowout of the previous unbeaten Tigers.
Redshirt senior forward Eric Dixon, who scored 34 points in the win over Carolina, was an easy choice for MVP in this tournament. But the Cats latest win was a team effort with nine of 11 players who appeared scoring. Five finished in double figures. Senior guard TJ Bamba led the Cats with 13 points. Fifth year senior guard Justin Moore, fifth year senior forward Tyler Burton and Dixon all had 11 and sophomore guard Mark Armstrong added 10.
Villanova is the oldest, most experienced team in college basketball, and was immune to distractions that normally affect teams in island basketball.
It is also a product for resourceful recruiting.
The Cats opted to skip four-year recruits and added four players– Bamba from Washington State, Burton from Richmond, forward Hakim Hart from Maryland and center Lance Ware of Kentucky– upperclassmen from the transfer portal who can all contribute. along with the experienced Dixon and Moore, who understand the culture, junior Jordan Longino and Armstrong, who was good enough to make the USA 19-and-under team.
The Cats are a result of a growing trend in the college game, since teams tend to advance in March with older teams as opposed to Top 50 recruits.
Dixon and Moore are staples of Kyle Neptune’s effective use of isolation plays in the halfcourt offense, which tortured Carolina, which refused to double Dixon defense and never thought about stringing up the zone Steve Donahue played when Penn upset the Cats at the Palestra. The Cats are relentless attacking the rim and have also showed the ability to shoot the three from various positions, making five in the first six minutes to build momentum.
But it was defense that stood out throughout this tournament. The Cats never let the ball get to the post with its gap defense against Tech, limited Carolina’s All-America center Armando Bacot to just six points with a physical man to man and completely took Memphis out of their defense when the game was decided in the first 20 minutes.
We had seen suffocating moments like this earlier when Nova jumped out to a 46-17 lead over Maryland at the Finn, limiting the Terps to just 4 for 27 shooting in the first half. This is a team that had found chemistry quickly. with its unselfish play and aggressive defense that smothered Memphis, forcing eight early turnovers.
“That first half was definitely a nightmare because we couldn’t make a shot, we couldn’t get a rebound,” Memphis coach Penny Hardaway said. “We couldn’t do anything right. You could just see the team losing confidence by the second.”
Memphis did have a 21-0 run in the second half against Villanova’s backups, forcing Neptune to reinsert Dixon and Moore to stabilize things but the lead was never in jeopardy.
The Cats’ weeklong performance is more proof the Big East has four potential second weekend teams with Nova, defending national champion UConn, Marquette and Creighton and two more teams– Providence, St. John’s– that could be Top eight NCAA tournament seeds in what looks like the best conference in the country 1 through 6, slightly ahead of the Big 12. Marquette has already beaten top-ranked Kansas in Maui semis and UConn defeated Texas to win the Empire Classic at the Garden.
