Villanova is the Only Good College Basketball Team

“It was the toughest game we ever played,” Jay Wright exclaimed after Villanova outlasted “Press” Virginia on Friday night in Boston. After being down six, 50-44, a good portion into the second half, the Cats absolutely exploded in the most Nova way possible, finishing a ten piece short of the century mark in a 90-78 win over Bob Huggins’ squad.




As Villanova advances to the Elite 8, the ongoing tournament continues to be a microcosm of the college basketball season as a whole. Roller coaster teams who go through hot/cold stretches, uncertainty, absolute chaos, and Villanova. While the blue bloods of the sport have faltered and top seeds have been bounced early, Villanova looked dead in the face of the most mentally and physically draining test there is and blew through it. Nova in the first half, turned the ball over 9 times (they average 10.5 turnovers PER GAME), Dante Divincenzo had 3 fouls, they were all out of sorts and West Virginia had all the momentum. And they were still winning. They still scored 44. And then, they dropped another 46 points in the 2nd half, and knocked out the once #2 team in the country by double digits.

 

The crazy part of playing Villanova is the score may be close, but you’re never really as close as you think. You may think you’re in it and then in what feels like seconds, a 9-0 run with a sequence like this wipes out anything you thought you accomplished:

 

 

Look, I’m not sure this team is better than the ‘16 team that ran through Buddy Hield’s squad by 30 to get to the championship but they damn sure are close. And there not exactly running into a team like that North Carolina squad along the way.



This version of March Madness has lived up to the hype as far as upsets and just blatant bracket implosion. There’s a god damn nun who is a bigger star than any player in this thing and the #1 overall seed in the tournament got bounced by basically the community college of Baltimore. No matter how much basketball you’ve watched, you have no clue what’s going to happen.

 

There have been 67 question marks in this years bracket. And then there’s Villanova.

By Aidan Powers | March 24, 2018