Dick Weiss on NCAA Tournament
PITTSBURGH, Pa.—Villanova’s active red shirt 6-7 junior forward Mikal Bridges used to go into hibernation on offense his first two years when his shots weren’t falling, fading into the background and concentrating on defense and rebounding.
There was a moment here yesterday when it looked like he might disappear again after he didn’t make a field goal in the first half of the top-seeded Cats’ NCAA East Region second round game against ninth-seed Alabama at the PPG Paints Arena.
But Bridges has become a completely different player this season, transforming himself into a NBA lottery pick with his new-found aggressiveness. Bridges come out of his coma, scoring 19 of the Cats’ first 24 points in the second half as the top-seeded Cats got on a 21-1 roll and blew by the Tide, 81-59, to advance to the Sweet 16 in Boston.
“Coach was telling me to be aggressive and stay ready, play off your jump shot, Bridges said. “My teammates found me open and I kept shooting.’’
Bridges finished with of 22 of his 23 points in the second half on 7 of 16 shooting and made five threes as Villanova (32-4) buried a good young Alabama team under a torrent of 17 three pointers.
“I used to worry about Mikal last year because he’s not a confident kid,’’ Villanova coach Jay Wright said. “He’s a nice guy. He used to be too nice where okay, I’m not making shots. I’m not going to shoot anymore. I’ll let everybody else do it. I’ll defend and rebound.
“When I came into the locker room, Jalen (Brunson) was talking about it. And he said you’ve got to stay aggressive. It’s a little thing with him. When he gets going, his teammates respect him and are going to find him.’’
This was the second consecutive game in the tournament the Cats made double figure threes. They nailed 14 in an 87-61 victory against overmatched, 16th seed Radford in the opening round.
“Villanova can stretch you out,’’ Alabama blue chip freshman point guard Collin Sexton, a likely one and done lottery pick, said. “and it’s very hard to stop him once they are knocking down jump shots. And they can get you off your feet if you go for the pump fake and they get in the lane, find another player, and they are going to knock down the shot. We didn’t do a very good job defending the three-point shot and they hit 17 of them.’’
Villanova has an embarrassment of riches on offense. Wright has six players capable of scoring 20 points and making threes in big games.
“Most of their guys can pass, dribble and shoot,’’ Alabama coach Avery Johnson said. “They even have fives and centers who can stretch the floor. When you got centers who can make threes, that’s kind of a Euro-style offense, but that’s not only where the NBA game has gone, but it’s also where the college game is. And that’s a pretty good blueprint on that style of play.’’
When Bridges was missing in action in the first half, red shirt junior guard Donte Divincenzo, who appears to be a license to shoot, stepped up to carry the foul plagued Cats, who had three players—Brunson, Omari Spellman and Eric Paschall– with two personals apiece. Divincenzo scored all 18 of his points and made five three-point goals, the last one with four seconds left in the half to lift Villanova to a 32-27 lead before the deluge.
“Jalen got two fouls early just being aggressive defensively,’’ Divincenzo said. “That’s what we want to do. I just came in and my job was to just defend and rebound. I felt like I was defending at a high rate. We were just running things and I found myself hot. I just know that when I got it going, a couple shots were going down, they were loading to me, trying to deny me the ball. I just tried to make the right play, shots or passes.’’
The Cats came into this game cognizant that anything is possible in this tournament after UMBC upset No. 1 Virginia, 74-54, in a first round game Friday in Charlotte.
“It’s funny. We do a thing the night before a game. We have a little snack and we hang together,’’ Wright said. “I actually went to bed early because the night before I stayed up to watch film and we had a 1 o’clock practice.
“So, I went to my room and started to watch the game. I couldn’t go to sleep because I had to watch the end of it. Then in the morning, when we came down to breakfast, everybody was talking about it.’’
Everyone is talking about Villanova today. With Virginia gone, the Cats are suddenly the team to beat in this tournament.
