PHILADELPHIA– The game might not have been a masterpiece, but second- seed Villanova found its way back to a third NCAA Final Four in the last six tournaments, grinding out a 50-44 victory over fifth seed Houston in the South Region championship in San Antonio.
Sadly, guard Justin Moore, the team’s second leading scorer, did not participate when he Cats mounted the ladder to cut down the nets at the AT &T Arena.
Moore was on crutches after suffering a right lower leg injury in the final minute. Coach Jay Wright said x-rays revealed no broken bones but said Moore will undergo further tests today when the Cats arrive back in the Main Line.
“It’s probably not good for Justin,” Wright said. “We’re going to get an MRI when we get back. And it’s probably not good.”
Moore slipped while driving the lane with 35 seconds left in the game and had to be helped off the court. He did not take part in the postgame celebrations with his teammates coming to see him at the end of the bench. Moore went to the locker room on crutches during the trophy celebration.
Announcers for TBS suggested it may have been a torn Achilles, which would eliminate Moore from playing in Saturday’s national semi-final game in New Orleans and further shorten Villanova’s already thin rotation.
“I’ve been in that position,” fifth- year senior point guard Collin Gillespie said. “I know what it feels like We don’t know what the injury is yet. He still has to get checked. He’s done so much for this team, always guards the best player, is one of our best offensive players and will do anything for any one of our guys on the other end of the floor.
“A lot of our guys ran right over to him because we’re not in the position that we are without him. So we just wanted to go over to him and just appreciate what he does for us and know that we got his back.”
Gillespie, a two-time Big East Player of the Year, suffered a season ending torn ligament last February that kept him out of the 2021 tournament when Villanova lost to Baylor in the Sweet 16.
“I still don’t know what’s necessarily going on,” said forward Jermaine Samuels, who scored 16 points against the Cougars and was chosen the MVP of the Region. “It kind of gave me a throwback to when the same thing happened to Collin, where it was a numb type of thing.”
Moore, a 6-4 junior from DeMatha Catholic, had eight points and two rebounds in 37 minutes against Houston. For the season, he is averaging 13.8 points, 4.8 rebounds and 2.3 assists.
If he can’t go, he will be replaced by 6-6 senior wing Caleb Daniels, the sixth man who scored 14 points in 35 minutes against Houston.
Wright has gone through this tournament with basically a six- man rotation. Wright played Gillespie 38 minutes against Houston. Moore played 37, Daniels 35, Samuels 33, Brandon Slater 32 and center Eric Dixon 26., the only other player to get minutes for Nova was backup guard Chris Arcidiacono, who got two minutes. The chemistry has been great but there is no margin of error with depth.
It was a bittersweet ending to an ugly, low scoring victory that was decided on defense.
“You just knew watching this team defensively, like you weren’t going to come out and just outscore them,” Wright said. “We really weren’t talking as much at the end about how we were going to score. We were talking about
how we were going to stop them.”
Gillespie, the Cats’ leading scorer, only made one field goal for the 30-7 Cats, who shot just 28.8 percent. The Cougars shot just slightly better at 29.8 percent, missing their last five shots and 10 of 11 overall after cutting an 11 point second half deficit to two. The 32-6 Cougars, who advanced to the Final Four last year, made just 1 of 20 attempted 3 pointers.
It was like we were playing against ourselves,” Daniels said. “It was a literal street fight, every possession trying to get a rebound.”
Houston made it almost impossible for Gillespie and Moore to get clean touches on back door cuts or post ups. But Villanova found a way, maintaining the lead throughout extending a 42-40 lead to four when Gillespie made a jup shot off a timeout with 5:02 to play and then closing the Cougars out at the end by making a perfect 15 for 15 from the line.
“If you had told me before the game that we’ve going to hold them to 28 percent from the field, they’re going to shoot 23 percent from the three, and we’d lose, I wouldn’t have believed you,” Houston coach Kelvin Sampson said. “I knew going in it was going to take a good team to beat us. And a good team did. I thought there were two great cultures out there tonight.”
