HARTFORD, Conn.— Villanova coach Jay Wright knew what to expect when he and his team showed up for their NCAA tournament first round game against St. Mary’s.
But it was still weird tipping off at 7:45 p.m. in a near empty arena and playing most of the first half of a 61-57 victory in a ghost town.
TBS didn’t do this tournament any favors with its scheduling. Tip off for this game was originally scheduled for 7:20 but was pushed back to 7:45 because of opening game of afternoon doubleheader between Florida State and Vermont did not start until 2 p.m. By the time the Murray State-Marquette game ended at 6:54, there wasn’t enough time to clear out the aging arena and open the doors for the next group of fans to enter through metal detectors and find their seats.
Some fans didn’t make it inside the arena until late in the first half.
The optics were terrible and need to be addressed by the NCAA tournament committee. “We were coming off the Big East tournament at Madison Square Garden,’’ Wright said. “It’s sold out, crazy energy when you walk on the floor and you walk out here tonight and there’s literally no one in the building. It’s bizarre. It’s really bizarre. I thought both teams deserved a lot of credit for really focusing. That game was intense and well played from the start.“You do worry about those things, you know. They’re 18 and 20-year old kids. We have a lot of guys in the NCAA tournament for the first time thinking this is the NCAA tournament? There’s no one in the stands. That’s part of it, that’s what comes with it.’’
Villanova is still alive in tournament today because their two indispensable redshirt senior stars—guard Phil Booth and forward Eric Paschall—simply refuse to lose.
Booth scored 20 points and contributed six assists and Paschall had 14 points and six rebounds as the defending national champions scraped their way to a victory against a taller, internationally flavored St. Mary’s team that was coming off a WCC tournament championship, in which they defeated West top seed Gonzaga, 60-47, in Vegas.
Booth, the Big East tournament MVP, came to the rescue after St. Mary’s cut a seven-point Villanova lead to three when Tommy Kuhse drained a three pointer with 5:59 to play. He nailed a three to drive the lead back to 53-47, then made two critical free throws to push it to 55-49 with 3:44 left in a grind it out game that was reminiscent of the way Villanova had to play in its final two games of the Big East tournament.
“This team, St. Mary’s, is one of the best at grinding it out like that in close games,’’ Booth said. “So, the Big East really helped us with that, learning how to grind out a game. We had games like that where we lost early in the season, so it was good for us to get that experience in New York.’’
Booth and Paschall were forced to do most of the heavy lifting again because Wright doesn’t have enough dependable scorers in what has become a six-man rotation. Villanova’s defense supplied the Cats with a huge lift, too, in the second half when they limited a disciplined St. Mary’s to 27 points and 41 percent even though the Cats were undersized, playing against a team that could put 6-10 players—freshman Mathias Tass from Estonia and 6-10 Jordan Hunter from Austalia– on the floor at the same time.
“We weren’t playing that badly, actually,’’ Booth said. “It was more that they were playing very well in the first half and we were trying to match how they were bringing it. I think we just had to take it to another level.’’
