PHILADELPHIA– Three weeks ago, Villanova men’s basketball team looked like it was lost in the abyss, destined for a 17 or 18 loss season.
Today, the Cats are America’s darlings again, the dark horse to win the Big East championship and earn an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.
It’ will be hard to win four straight games in the Garden, but Villanova looks like it will be a tough out against any team it plays the rest of the season.
The 15-14 Cats, who defeated 13th ranked Xavier on the road, got their second signature victory of the week Saturday, beating 19th ranked Creighton, 79-67, before a healthy crowd of 17,114 at Wells Fargo.
Yes, they were that impressive.
Especially 6-8, 255- pound redshirt junior Eric Dixon.
Dixon lit up the arena, scoring 31 points on 11 of 15 shooting and making 6 of 8 three- point attempts while outplaying Creighton’s 7-1 sophomore Ryan Kalkbrenner. Dixon turned a size matchup into a personal mismatch by torching Kalkbrenner with a face up game from the top of the circle, then using his quickness to explode to the basket because Kalkbrenner was too slow on the switches.
Dixon set the tone in the first half when he scored 18 of his points as Nova. jumped out to a 38-24 lead. Then he helped put Creighton away with an old fashioned three-point play gave the Cats a 58-45 lead with 11:18 to play.
It was easily the best game of his career and brought back memories of his dominant performances at Abington, Pa. High School, where he was named the Pennsylvania Player of the Year as a senior.
Dixon has been a two- year starter for the Cats. He chose Villanova over offers from Virginia, Miami and Maryland but needed a red shirt year to reshape his body. As a freshman, he was an understudy to Jeremiah Robinson-Earl, an NBA player.
He has transformed himself from a raw talent into a pure college center whose patience has grown and post skills have been refined.
And, like so many other Villanova players in the past, he has constantly improved.
“We ran into a buzz saw today.” Creighton coach Greg McDermott said. “Villanova was able to turn our defense inside out with Dixon’s ability to stretch the floor.”
Kyle Neptune’s first team is finally starting to resemble a Jay Wright team.
The Cats have a solid eight-man rotation now that guards Justin Moore and Jordan Longino are back and Moore gives them a player who can close out games in the final three minutes, which used to be a fire drill in the early part of the season.
They have two future pros in freshman forward Cam Whitmore, who should be a lottery pick; and the strong 6-5 Moore, who had eight points and eight assists.
Kyle Neptune’s first team is finally starting to resemble a Jay Wright team.
“You can see it coming as you watch them since Justin has returned,” McDermott said. “You can see growth every game. Frankly, I was afraid of this. Unfortunately, I was right. Trust me, I’ve played Villanova teams. There weren’t al lot of teams that were gonna beat this team today the way they played.”
Villanova has also shown much better ball movement now that freshman point guard Mark Armstrong has shaken off his early season jitters and started to play like he did for St. Peter’s Prep and with the Team USA U18 team that won a gold medal in the tournament of the Americas in Mexico last summer.
Four players– Moore, who scored 25 points and shot 10 for 13 against Xavier; guard Caleb Daniels, a healthy Whitmore and Dixon have all shown they are capable of scoring 20 points or more. The shot selection is better. The Cats shot 50 percent against the Blue Jays and 41 from the three.
The perimeter defense is also better, closing out on three- point shooters. The Cats holding Creighton to just 27 percent shooting in the first half and 5 for 26 from three for the game. The character and culture, which was built by Wright, is there among the seniors as seen when Villanova erased a 13- point deficit to beat Xavier, 64-63.
“We just had to grow as a team,” Neptune said. “Thank god our players have continued to get better and better. Our goal is to be the best team we can be. Hopefully, we can reach that goal.”
The road forward won’t be easy. the Cats have a road game at Seton Hall Wednesday and a home game against dangerous UConn, which is coming on too. The Big East Tournament has five ranked teams and Villanova will not get a Wednesday night bye like they have in the past. But they have been fun to watch again.
