Villanova Clip File

On the following pages is a selection of feature stories and news articles related to Villanova basketball from the 2015-16 season. The articles are grouped into categories for team features, individual player features and game recaps. Each category is sorted in reverse chronological order, with the newest items first.

Team Feature Stories

1. Why We Should Expect Big Things From Villanova Philadelphia Daily News, Marcus Hayes, 3/28/16

2. For ‘Ugly’ Game, Villanova Gets Beautiful Reward of Final Four Trip Delaware County Daily Times, Terry Toohey, 3/27/16

3. Villanova’s Toughness Produces a Final Four Berth Philadelphia Inquirer, Joe Juliano, 3/27/16)

4. Villanova’s Trip to Final Four Has a Familiar Look Philadelphia Daily News, Mike Kern, 3/27/16

5. Cats Deep Run Making the Big East Proud Delaware County Daily Times, Terry Toohey, 3/27/16

6. Villanova Showing an Elite Status As They Brace For Showdown with Kansas Delaware County Daily Times, Terry Toohey, 3/25/16

7. Villanova Tosses Elephant Out of the Room Philadelphia Daily News, Mike Kern, 3/20/16

8. Villanova’s Walk-Ons Have Enjoyed ‘Opportunity of Lifetime’ csnphilly.com, Dave Zeitlin, 3/8/16

9. Jay Wright and Villanova Believe They’ve Found the Perfect Balance For a Deep NCAA Tournament Run si.com, Brian Hamilton, 3/1/16

10. Villanova Can’t Hide From NCAA Tourney Failures ESPN.com, Dana O’Neil, 2/24/16

11. Why Is Villanova No. 1? Defense Plays Big Role Philadelphia Inquirer, Joe Juliano, 2/23/16

12. Villanova Won’t Be Undone By Three-Point Issues Philadelphia Daily News, Dick Jerardi, 2/22/16

Team Feature Stories (continued)

13. Baker Dunleavy: Nova Basketball’s Chief of Staff Philadelphia Inquirer, Mike Jensen, 2/7/16

14. In Case We Needed Reminding, Villanova Displays Why It’s A Final Four Favorite Foxsports.com, Reid Forgrave, 2/6/16

15. Villanova Still in the Grind Philadelphia Inquirer, Bob Ford, 1/29/16

16. Villanova Finding Ways to Win on the Road Philadelphia Inquirer, Joe Juliano, 1/21/16

17. Will Big East Prepare Villanova For NCAA Tournament? (Philadelphia Daily News, John Smallwood, 1/6/16

Player Feature Stories

1. Arcidiacono Leads, and Wildcats Follow (Ryan Arcidiacono) Philadelphia Daily News, Mike Kern, 3/24/16

2. Jenkins and ‘Nova Are Hottest of Shots (Kris Jenkins) Philadelphia Inquirer, Bob Ford, 3/24/16

3. ‘Nova’s Big Man Delivers in Big Way (Daniel Ochefu) Philadelphia Inquirer, Bob Ford, 3/18/16

4. NCAA Tournament: Mikal Bridges, From Redshirt to ‘Vital Part’ (Mikal Bridges) csnphilly.com, Reuben Frank, 3/15/16)

5. Villanova’s Trio Brings Energy Off the Bench (Phil Booth, Mikal Bridges, Darryl Reynolds) Delaware County Daily Times, Terry Toohey, 3/15/16

6. ‘Nova’s Arcidiacono Gets Glory and Bruises (Ryan Arcidiacono) Philadelphia Inquirer, Bob Ford, 3/11/16

7. Nova’s Josh Hart Even Better This Season (Josh Hart) Philadelphia Inquirer, Joe Juliano, 2/16/16

8. Ochefu Crucial to Villanova Success (Daniel Ochefu) Philadelphia Inquirer, Mike Sielski, 2/16/16

Player Feature Stories (continued)

9. Darry Reynolds Emerging For No. 1 ‘Nova (Darryl Reynolds) Philadelphia Inquirer, Joe Juliano, 2/12/16

10. Ryan Arcidiacono a Shining Star For Super ‘Nova (Ryan Arcidiacono) Philadelphia Daily News, Dick Jerardi, 1/26/16

11. How Jalen Brunson Was Shaped By His Father’s Lessons and His Scandal Sports Illustrated, Lee Jenkins, 11/30/15

12. Gifted Freshman Jalen Brunson Lifts Villanova’s Hopes Philadelphia Inquirer, Mike Jensen, 11/14/15

Game Recaps

1. All Systems Go: ‘Nova Books Trip to Houston Delaware County Daily Times, Terry Toohey, 3/27/16

2. Villanova Falls to No. 7 Oklahoma in Hawaii Philadelphia Inquirer, Jason Kaneshiro, 12/8/16

Team Feature #1 March 28, 2016

Why We Should Expect Great Things From Villanova Marcus Hayes, Philadelphia Daily News

Villanova and its faithful deserve every calorie of joy earned and spent on the run to the Final Four.

Those who remained steadfast in their support of coach Jay Wright through the second-round losses the previous two years should take an extra measure of satisfaction in the team's appearance in Houston.

It is important, though, to view Villanova as it is, rather than what current perception seems to be making it out to be.

The Wildcats are a deep, seasoned team filled with pedigreed recruits who entered with four or five stars next to their names. They are not a ragtag group of spunky overachievers bucking long odds, beating superior programs. Any such thought is not only wrong, it is patronizing. They are back in the Final Four after a six-year absence, which is the fringe of acceptability for Philadelphia's power program.

They are not the Little Engine that Could. They're the Big Program that Should.

They are a No. 2 seed, the third time in the last three years they were a 1 or 2.

They entered the season ranked 11th, never dropped below 17th and spent three weeks at No. 1 late in the season.

They entered the Big East Tournament as its top seed and its defending champion. A two-point loss in the title game cost it a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament.

Their Elite Eight "upset" of Kansas, the top overall seed in the NCAA, might not have been considered an upset had the teams met a month ago on a neutral court.

They play in a conference better known for its past than its present, but the name has value and they are its class. Wright has adjusted to the realities of a one-and-done NCAA culture. He has nurtured a core group of seniors and juniors and complemented them with sophomores and freshmen. This is a program that routinely should play past the first weekend, and it is situated to do so in the tournament for at least the next two seasons.

So, as they bask in their recent achievements the next few days, remember that these Wildcats had every bit as much reason to expect to get to Texas as the Kentucky Wildcats ... or the Jayhawks, or the Tar Heels, or the Sooners, who they face Saturday.

Expect them to win that one, too.

They expect it.

They have all year.

Team Feature #2 March 27, 2016

For ‘Ugly’ Game, Villanova Gets Beautiful Reward of Final Four Trip Terry Toohey, Delaware County Daily Times

LOUISVILLE, Ky. >> The on-court celebration was long over and the formal media obligations complete.

Once he got off the dais, all Ryan Arcidiacono wanted to do was get back to the Villanova locker room as quickly as possible and wrap his arms around the South Regional championship trophy the Wildcats had just won with a stunning 64-59 triumph over Kansas, the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament.

In a second, it was in his grasp. Arcidiacono cradled the trophy close to his chest like a small child clings to a favorite stuffed animal. He would not let it go.

The scene was reminiscent of Scottie Reynolds holding the game ball he used to score the winning basket in the final seconds to lift the Wildcats over Pittsburgh in the 2009 East Regional final in Boston.

“I’ll lose in the first two rounds the last two years to get to a Final Four,” Arcidiacono said with a huge smile on his face.

All of Villanova’s past shortcomings in the NCAA Tournament — the loss to UConn as the No. 2 seed in the East Regional two years ago and the crushing defeat at the hands of North Carolina State as the No. 1 seed in the East Regional last season — were a distant memory.

“It’s a surreal feeling,” Arcidiacono said.

A few lockers to his left, fellow senior Daniel Ochefu had an even bigger grin on his face and the championship net dangling from his neck.

“I may never take this off,” Ochefu said.

After blistering the nets at a 59 percent clip overall and 53 percent from 3-point range in the first three rounds of the NCAA Tournament, the Wildcats shot 40.4 percent (21-for-52) and 22.2 percent (4-for-18) against a Kansas defense determined to take away the 3-pointer. Yet Villanova still beat the No. 1 team in the land, something most pundits didn’t think possible.

The Wildcats trailed by five points, 45-40, with 10 minutes, 50 seconds to play, and their leading scorer in the tournament, Kris Jenkins, on the bench with four fouls. Less than three minutes later, after back-to-back threes by Arcidiacono and Josh Hart, Villanova was up, 50-45, and on its way to the Final Four for the fifth time in program history and first since 2009.

They did it by being tougher than the Jayhawks, defending as if their season depended on it, which it did, protecting the ball, making free throws down the stretch. Villanova came up with nearly every loose ball.

The Wildcats had 11 steals, five by redshirt freshman Mikal Bridges. Two of his thefts came in the final 34 seconds as Villanova desperately clung to the lead.

“We knew coming into the game that it was going to be a battle,” Bridges said. “It wasn’t going to be an easy game, and we just had to fight and scrap for 40 minutes.” Villanova swarmed Kansas at every turn and did not give the Jayhawks room to breathe, especially leading scorer Perry Ellis. The 6-8 senior came into the game averaging 23 points per game. Villanova held him to 1-for-5 shooting and four points.

Villanova limited the Jayhawks to six points off turnovers, six second-chance points, two fast-break points and zippo from the bench. Kansas came into the game averaging 11.7, 10, 10.3 and 20.7 points, respectively, in those four categories.

The Wildcats had two turnovers in the second half, none after Bridges coughed it up with 15:03 to play. Villanova shot 18-for-19 from the free-throw line for the second straight game, 14-for-15 in the second half. They converted their last 12 attempts, few, if any, drawing iron.

“We just wanted to make this ugly, make it a street fight,” Ochefu said.

In other words, Villanova turned the game into a knock-down, drag-out, Big East grinder. And the Wildcats have been very good at winning those games the last three years.

“We have to give a shoutout to Creighton, Seton Hall, Penn, those guys that played us the same way,” Hart said. “They’re going to get up in you and deny, and you have to go make plays and be aggressive. That’s what we’ve seen before. It wasn’t anything new to us.

“We love that dogfight. We love that street fight. We love it being ugly. It’s 40-40 late in the second half and we’re taking charges and diving for loose balls. We thrive in that environment. It may have been ugly to everyone else, hideous, but to us, it was the most beautiful thing in the world.”

Ochefu gave much of the credit for this team’s success to the seniors that came before them, players such as James “Tahj” Bell, Maurice Sutton, Nick McMahon, Tony Chennault, Mouphtaou Yarou, JayVaughn Pinkston and Darrun Hilliard.

“They’re the guys who made us the men we are today,” Ochefu said.

And now Villanova gets a rematch with Oklahoma next Saturday in the national semifinals. The Sooners manhandled the Wildcats in the Pearl Harbor Invitational more than three months ago, 78-55.

“They lit us up,” Villanova coach Jay Wright said. “I’m not going to have to inspire our guys at all to respect them. We got lit up.”

Team Feature #3 March 27, 2016

Villanova’s Toughness Produces a Final Four Berth Joe Juliano, Philadelphia Inquirer LOUISVILLE, Ky. - When you look at the impeccably dressed Jay Wright on the Villanova sideline, one word that doesn't enter into your list of descriptions is "ugly."

Yet Wright's players take absolute glee in describing their style of play as ugly. When things got tense Saturday night in the NCAA South Regional championship against No. 1 seed Kansas, the Wildcats turned up the ugly meter and propelled themselves to the Final Four in Houston.

"If we buckled down on defense," junior swingman Josh Hart said after 'Nova's 64-59 victory over the Jayhawks at the KFC Yum! Center, "and we made it ugly - diving on the floor, taking charges, doing the little things this program is built on - we knew we were going to be in the game."

That all comes under the heading of toughness. The second-seeded Wildcats (33-5), who tied the program record for victories in a season, exhibited that quality after a shaky first four minutes, and again after the Jayhawks (33-5) recovered from a nine-point first-half deficit to go up by five midway through the second half.

"We wanted to make it ugly," said senior guard Ryan Arcidiacono. "We knew we weren't shooting the ball well. But the backbone of our program is just defend and rebound and play hard and together. I think we did that. We started off a little slow, but I would say the last 35 minutes or so of the game is where we really turned it up and made it an ugly street fight."

The best examples of the Villanova grit came in the final 4 minutes, 28 seconds, after redshirt freshman Mikal Bridges hit what would be his team's final field goal of the game. The Wildcats hit eight straight free throws in the last 33.1 seconds and blew up Kansas' last possession when Arcidiacono knocked the ball away from Jayhawks point guard Frank Mason III. Bridges dove on it and called timeout.

The Cats wrapped up their scoring after the Bridges steal - his fifth of the game - with two free throws from freshman Jalen Brunson. Hart stole the ensuing inbounds pass, the Jayhawks' 16th and final turnover of the game, and it was over.

The Wildcats needed a strong defensive effort because their offense, which shot nearly 60 percent in the first three NCAA games and knocked down 33 three-point baskets, struggled against the Jayhawks. They hit just 40.4 percent of their field-goal attempts, with four threes in 18 tries.

Wright got Villanova to its fifth Final Four and his second. He is the third coach of a Big Five team to take his team to the national semifinals twice, joining Temple's Harry Litwack (1956, 1958) and La Salle's Ken Loeffler (1954, 1955).

Now that they're there, the Wildcats will face Oklahoma (29-7), the West Regional champ and the team that dealt them their worst defeat of the season, 78-55, in Hawaii on Dec. 7, the 75th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Playing its eighth game of the season, Villanova shot less than 32 percent, made just 4 of 32 three-point attempts, and gave up 14 baskets from beyond the arc to the Sooners. Reflecting Saturday night, Wright said Oklahoma "taught us a lesson, helped us a lot.

"I'd rather not play them because they're so good," he said. "I do think it's going to help our focus in terms of dealing with distractions because players don't want to be embarrassed. They know [the Sooners] can embarrass us. If they're drilling threes, there's nothing you can do if you let them get it going like that. So I think our guys will be really dialed in."

Oklahoma's Buddy Hield, who averages 25.4 points per game, will be the first player to make the Final Four averaging at least 25 points since 1990. He has 146 threes this season, slightly more than four per game.

Team Feature #4 March 27, 2016

Villanova’s Trip to Final Four Has a Familiar Look Mike Kern, Philadelphia Daily News

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - In many ways, the scene took you back to the 2009 East Regional final, when Scottie Reynolds went end-to-end in just under 5.5 seconds for the game-winner against Big East rival Pitt. And not just because Villanova is going back to the Final Four. Seven years ago, the Wildcats had to overcome a late four-point deficit, after getting to the Sweet 16 the year before. And an hour or so afterward, Reynolds was still holding onto the game ball tightly while sitting in front of his locker.

Late Saturday night, Villanova beat another No. 1 seed in the Elite Eight. This time it was for the South title, against the top seed in the NCAA Tournament. These Wildcats found themelves down five midway through the second half, after they'd led by seven at intermission. They would never trail in the final 8 1/2 minutes. Kansas, which had won its previous 17, did get to within one with 15 seconds to go. It ended 64-59, as Villanova - which went 18-for-19 from the foul line - made eight straight free throws in the closing 33 seconds.

And a good hour later, Ryan Arcidiacono was holding court at his stall in the KFC Yum! Center. The regional trophy was right in front of him. Both his arms were wrapped around it. No way he was letting go.

Hard to blame him.

"I never knew my 22nd birthday could be better than my 21st," he said. "It's the first time I've played on my birthday. I won't have a better one, unless I have a kid and he's born on the same day . . . I had a little smirk on my face (when it was over). I know how much this team has put into this."

The reason he hadn't played on March 26 the past two years was that the Wildcats lost in the second round as a top- two seed. The selection committee made them a No. 2 for the second time in three years but didn't send them to Philadelphia's region even though the rules allowed them to. Doesn't matter anymore.

"To be honest, I was watching those (East) games (on Friday) night and it was getting to me a little bit," said Jay Wright, who becomes the third Big 5 coach to go to two Final Fours, and first in 58 years. "Seeing teams on our (alternative) court, celebrating . . . I wasn't mad at anybody. I'll just tell you it hurt."

Next up in Houston on Saturday will be the No. 2 seed out of the West, Oklahoma, which beat another No. 1, Oregon, 80-68. The Sooners defeated Villanova in early December in Hawaii, 78-55. Both teams made it to No. 1 this season, Villanova for the first time.

"I am not going to have to inspire our guys at all," Wright noted. "I mean, we got lit up. It's interesting. They were an older team then, and it kind of taught us a lesson. They were where we wanted to get to. We're just starting to get there. Oklahoma's been there all year.

"Players don't like to be embarrassed. They don't want to look back on the court. They know (Oklahoma) could embarrass us, if they start hitting threes. Oregon's a helluva team."

The ones that make it this far usually are. For a program that has won 95 of its last 108, the Wildcats still hadn't been past the second game since 2009. This group has tied the school record for wins, set last season. But that team went home early, again. That's what made this all the more meaningful.

"Amazing," said senior center Daniel Ochefu, who more than held his own against the Kansas bigs: 10 points on eight shots, eight rebounds, two assists, a block and a steal in 29 minutes. "That's the only word. It's just a dream come true.

"It's like two opposite ends of the spectrum, after all the shortcomings. We continued to build year after year, and we got there as a senior. Wow."

What about that net hanging around his neck?

"I may never take it off," he said through the widest of smiles.

Wright dealt with the shortcomings, too. Maybe more than anyone else. In victory, he felt for his guys.

"It's like your children," he said. "Even though we lost for two years, I still know they're great. We did everything we could to make them understand that just one game in a tournament doesn't make you a loser. But to see them prove it to everybody else . . .

"When you get there as a coach and you've never been there, it hits you. You know, I got to this. It can be a little much in your own head. This time, I'm watching them enjoy it. And so I get to enjoy it a lot more."

Wright said he didn't think the 2009 team was a Final Four team until it beat Pitt. This time, not as much.

"I told these guys they had a chance to win a national championship," he said. "You kind of sensed it about halfway through the year. After we played Oklahoma and Virginia (11-point loss in Charlottesville on Dec. 19), high-level games, I knew we had a lot of time to get better. Sometimes it's about where you run into people. Kansas ran into a hot team.

"(The players) have to want it bad, when things get rough. You can't just put that in as a coach. You don't get here unless you have that figured out. You can tell they do. They failed twice and came back from it. So they don't fear taking the heat. They already have. Life's not always fair. You can do the right things but not get what you deserve. Now to see them fulfill their potential, that's the greatest thing for me, to see the looks in those eyes."

They had won their first three games by averaging 88 points. This was a street fight. They only shot 40 percent. They made just four of 18 from the arc. They missed their last five shots, and seven of their last eight. But they turned it over once in the last 19:45. They found a way. Which is mostly what March is about.

"Going through struggles really helped us persevere," said Arcidiacono, a product of Neshaminy High whose parents are both Villanova graduates. "We know what the lowest of the lows are. Now we're getting to see the other side. You have to trust the process. It was a program commitment. Growing up watching Villanova, I never thought I could be part of it. We're not done yet. I'd lose them all in the first round for three years to get to the Final Four my last go-round."

Team Feature #5 March 27, 2016

Villanova’s Deep Run Making Big East Proud Terry Toohey, Delaware County Daily Times LOUISVILLE, Ky >> During the Big East Tournament, Villanova coach Jay Wright said he felt like he let the Big East down last year when the Wildcats were knocked out of the tournament in the second round by North Carolina State.

Well, Wright and the Wildcats are carrying the conference banner quite nicely and Big East commissioner Val Ackerman is glad of it.

“The conference has nothing but praise for what Villanova has done for this league, past, present and future,” Ackerman said before Villanova’s Elite Eight showdown with Kansas. “Jay’s a magnificent coach and has had great seasons since we reconfigured. We, frankly, couldn’t ask more from a program than Villanova has delivered.

“Obviously, in this business, winning counts for a lot. We’re thrilled this year that we’ve gone a little farther. They’ve had great successes during the season, the No. 1 ranking for three weeks during the regular season. The first time a non-FBS school has held that top spot since Gonzaga in ’12-13 so that’s no small feat. They have great senior leadership, which I think in itself is a great story. These kids that aren’t looking at it as a stepping stone over to the NBA, they’re sticking with their programs and leading by example to the younger players. Villanova is the heart and soul of this league and we couldn’t be prouder of what they’ve done and that we know that they’ll continue to do.”

In a sports world dominated by the Power Five football conferences, any exposure for a basketball-centric league like the Big East is good. Xavier brought the Big East good exposure by making it to the Sweet 16 last year. Villanova has brought more attention by reaching the Elite Eight. A Final Four appearance would be huge and Wright knows it.

“I do,” Wright said Friday. “My first responsibility is to these guys. I really would love to see these guys play in the Final Four. I’m enjoying watching them play and just being along for the ride with them and just watching them really enjoy challenges. They really are fired up, focused.

“The players have taken over all the responsibility, and that’s really fun to be a part of as a coach. You don’t get that a lot.

“As far as the Big East is concerned, that would be a byproduct of watching these guys be really successful and get to a Final Four. And I think we’re a new league. We’re going to go by our record and we’re going to go by our accomplishments.

“So if we can do that for the league, I do think it would help our respect level. And if we can be a part of that, I’d be really proud to do that.”

And so would Ackerman.

“The further you go, the better it is in terms of validating where you sit in the basketball order,” Ackerman said. “It’s certainly a plus to go this far. To have five teams in (the NCAA Tournament), last year six teams in, we’ve had 80 percent of our schools make it over the last three years into the tournament so that’s an accomplishment, but winning certainly helps.”

***

So how does a team pass the day when it has a near-9 p.m. start?

Meals, meetings, a shoot around and a little rest and relaxation, assistant coach Mike Nardi said.

The team had breakfast, a team meeting, shot around for about an hour at the KFC Yum! Center, then went back to the team hotel for dinner and then relaxed in their rooms.

“Yeah, you’d like it to be earlier, but that’s the way it is,” Nardi said before the game. “When you get to the tournament you know that the games can be late so you have to be ready for it.”

That’s where preparation comes in.

“Yeah, that’s why you schedule things that way during the year, to get ready for situations like this,” Nardi said.

And the Wildcats are big on preparation.

“It’s just a normal day,” fellow assistant coach Ashley Howard said. “You just keep it simple until it’s time to go play.”

***

NOTES >> Saturday was Ryan Arcidiacono’s birthday. He turned 22 … The win over Miami made Villanova 3-2 in Sweet 16 games under Wright. Villanova was 1-1 in the Elite Eight under Wright going into the meeting with Kansas … The Jayhawks put on quite an impressive dunk show when it first came out on the floor, about 50 minutes before tip-off. It got the crowd going pretty good, even the Villanova fans.

Team Feature #6 March 25, 2016

Villanova Showing an Elite Status As They Brace For Showdown with Kansas Terry Toohey, Delaware County Daily Times

LOUISVILLE, Ky >> The numbers are staggering. No, make that mind-blowing.

After three tournament games, Villanova’s margin of victory is 24 points, the best in the Big Dance.

The 92-69 beat down Villanova laid on Miami Thursday night was the most points scored by a team in a regional semifinal since Kentucky outlasted Indiana, 102-90, in 2012.

The second-seeded and sixth-ranked Wildcats are averaging 88.3 points per game in the tournament, and shooting 59.9 percent overall, 53.2 percent from 3-point range and 80.9 percent at the free-throw line.

Against Miami, the No. 3 seed in the South Region and the No. 10 team in the country, the Wildcats connected on 62.7 percent of their overall attempts, 66.7 percent from 3-point range and 94.7 percent from the line.

Yet overlooked in Villanova’s offensive feeding frenzy, at least from the outside, has been its play of defense.

The defensive numbers the Wildcats (32-5) may not be as impressive as the offensive figures, but the defense has been just as important to Villanova’s run to the Elite Eight for the first time since 2009.

Although Miami did shoot 53.2 percent overall and 58.8 percent from 3-point range, its percentages were not as good in the second half (42.3 and 50) and that allowed the Wildcats to pull away.

“We get fueled off getting stops,” junior guard Josh Hart said. “When we’re in that huddle, we’re not talking about we have to go hit a three or we have to do all of this offensive things, we focus on getting stops. If we get a stop we build off that.”

The numbers back it up. Villanova is holding teams to 44.5 percent shooting overall and 37.9 percent from 3-point range. Those figures are up from the regular-season, but the competition level is better. Turnovers, though, have been the key. Villanova has forced 39 turnovers and are averaging nearly 20 points and nine fast-break points per game in the tournament.

Yet the Wildcats are not satisfied.

“Our defense has a lot of room to get better,” center Daniel Ochefu said. “We had a lot of defensive lapses in the last game. We know we have a lot of offensive weapons. We have great shooters, but defensively is where we hold ourselves accountable and that’s been the difference in these games.”

Villanova defense faces its toughest challenge when the Wildcats take on top-seeded and top-ranked Kansas (33-4) in the South Regional final Saturday night at the KFC Yum Center (8:49 p.m., CBS3). The Jayhawks are the hottest team and have one of the hottest players in the tournament. Kansas has won 17 games in a row. Its last loss was an 85-72 decision at Iowa State. Kansas is 9-1 at neutral sites, 6-1 against top 25 teams on neutral courts. The Jayhawks have won eight straight against ranked opponents.

Much of that has been behind the play of Perry Ellis. The 6-8 senior has scored at least 20 points in each of the last three games and seven of the last eight. He is averaging 23 points per game in the tournament and 19.9 points over the last eight games.

If you think the Wildcats are thinking about throwing some kind of junk defense like a box-and-one or triangle-and- two to stop Ellis, forget about it.

“If you put too much attention on Perry Ellis, they have a system and a scheme to take advantage of that and get everybody else easier shots,” Villanova coach Jay Wright said. “And the other players are very talented. So it’s not like there’s a -- Perry Ellis, for his position, one on one, is an outstanding player. But it’s not like there’s a large amount of distance between him and his teammates for their position.

“So you just can’t do it. You’ve got to try to play him straight up. And if you give him too much attention, they have a way of getting Selden going. Graham gets going. I mean, Graham was the MVP of the tournament, right, the Big 12 Tournament. So if you give him too much attention, these guys, every one of these guys can kill you.”

Wayne Selden Jr. (13.7), Frank Mason III (12.8) and Devonte’ Graham (11.2) are also averaging double figures so the Jayhawks are hardly a one-man show.

Jenkins will most likely draw Ellis, but the Wildcats switch so much on defense that everyone will get a change to guard him, including, Darryl Reynold, Mikal Bridges and Phil Booth, the guys off the bench.

That’s what makes Villanova’s defense so good. It has many interchangeable parts and everyone is expected to participate and hold up their end of the bargain.

“We really don’t have matchups,” Jenkins said. We have five guys playing the ball so I don’t look at that. (Ellis is) a great player. They’re a great team. We’ll be ready. We’re looking forward to it.”

Team Feature #7 March 20, 2016

Villanova Tosses Elephant Out of the Room Mike Kern, Philadelphia Daily News

NEW YORK - OK, time for the next question.

And really, wasn't it about time?

The last time Villanova made it this far, in 2009, it went to a Final Four. But there had been way too many second- round missteps since then, as was well documented. And one more might have been, well, too much. The last thing you want to become is a national punch line. Especially when you've averaged over 30 wins the last three seasons with only regular-season titles to show for that.

As if those didn't matter.

It's what makes the NCAA Tournament the fragile entity that it's become, almost to the point where America forgets most of what preceded it.

It's not something the Wildcats have to live with any longer. Not that it was ruining their world or anything. But it's still one less thing.

"I'm glad we can get a lot of third-round questions now," said senior guard Ryan Arcidiacono, after Villanova's 19- point win that wasn't nearly that tight against overmatched Iowa at the Barclays Center. "It's a great feeling. But it wasn't a celebration. More of a big sigh of relief."

Because it's over. He doesn't have to end one of the most iconic careers a Villanova player has ever put together with no Sweet 16s on his résumé. It's hardly a minor detail. Not in today's world. And maybe that's the way it should be. So how would he have felt had his team called it a season on Sunday afternoon?

"Right after, yeah, it would have (been bad)," said their leader, who now has played in more games (140) with more starts (139) than any other Wildcat. "But when I started looking back at my career, all the great times and great teams I was involved with, I would've been fine.

"It was always in the back of my mind. Now that's not the case (anymore) . . . There's definitely a sense of relief that we did. But it didn't give us any extra motivation."

Maybe not. But for the second straight game they played, as coach Nick McDevitt of first-round victim UNC Asheville had put it on Friday, like a team that was weary of answering the same question.

Funny how that works sometimes.

So now the question becomes, can they keep playing well enough to keep it going? And exactly how far is up? Because just getting to this point for a change wasn't at the top of their wish list.

"The Sweet 16 wasn't our goal," insisted junior forward Josh Hart. "Our goal is to win the national championship. We want to make a run. Talking about the little things is what got us this far. "We were like Cinderella here, not a No. 2 seed. We felt like underdogs. Everybody doubted us. That's how we took it. It feels good not because we made it, but we were successful in our next game. We're not going to change. We wouldn't have changed if we'd lost this game.

"We remember the feeling (of losing in this game), the tears in the locker room. It's something we don't ever want to feel again."

Only one team gets to avoid that feeling. It might not be this one. Miami in Louisville on Thursday could be a completely different animal to deal with. Veteran group, coached by Jim Larranaga, who's also taken a team to the final weekend. And waiting after that could be Kansas. It would have been nicer if they were playing in South Philly, but that's another story. As Hart said, they could be playing in Anchorage against the Warriors and "we'd be happy." That's what happens when you've done something you haven't been able to do in a while.

Even if you did it against an opponent that was ranked third in late January before limping into the tourney as a seventh seed. Some stuff doesn't get remembered. And other stuff, like not having beaten anyone seeded higher than 15 in the previous six years, does.

The elephant in the room had grown quite imposing. A lot of baggage has been removed. You could see it all over Jay Wright's face afterward. And everyone else's. It was only a step. But not taking it for a third straight year as a top-two seed wasn't an option anyone wanted to test.

"I know you guys didn't want to write that story," Wright admitted, through a knowing smile.

It already had been written at least one too many times.

Time to find some fresh material.

Freshman Jalen Brunson, who's played in some big games before, wasn't there for the early departures. He looked as unfazed as anyone, as usual. But he understood what was in play, particularly for the guys who wanted to avoid making this their last college game.

"I talked to 'Arch' about it," Brunson said about his roomate. "A win like this can get emotional. What's most important is, we don't have to worry about it. It really wasn't a big thing. It feels great to know I was part of a little bit of history. I came here to be part of something special like this."

This was about reputations, and redemption. And just doing what a big-time seed is supposed to do but for whatever reasons sometimes doesn't.

"The (second half) seemed extremely long," said senior center Daniel Ochefu, whose smile was as wide as anyone's. "I remember there was 11 minutes left. And five minutes later it was like 10.

"This is the only game everybody was talking about. This was for the seniors who were here before us and molded us into the guys we are today."

In other words, it was a program talking.

The noise was pretty loud.

"No one was saying (in the locker room) that we had to get past this game," Arcidiacono said. "But I kind of felt it was our day."

Just took a while to finally arrive. Team Feature #8 March 8, 2016

Villanova’s Walk-Ons Have Enjoyed ‘Opportunity of Lifetime’ Dave Zeitlin, csnphilly.com Young kids ran over with basketballs and sharpies, adults patted them on the back and girls squealed in delight. A security guard standing on the Pavilion court even got in on the action, calling out to the Villanova basketball players, “Take it all the way!”

But it wasn’t the stars of the team who were getting so much adulation following Villanova’s 83-62 win over DePaul last week — the Wildcats’ final game at the Pavilion this season. It wasn’t even anyone who plays regular minutes.

No, it was the program’s three senior walk-ons: Henry Lowe, Patrick Farrell and Kevin Rafferty.

“I’m really not that cool,” Lowe laughed at one point, taking a break between signing autographs and posing for photos.

Maybe not. But there’s no denying the popularity of the three players, all of whom have become an integral part of the fabric of Villanova basketball over the past few years.

“It’s really cool,” Rafferty said. “It’s a product of how hard our team plays. People like to watch us and you get a little recognition from that. We don’t deserve the fanfare but it’s cool. It’s enjoyable for now. We just got to keep everyone grounded and make sure we’re just getting better.”

The Pavilion crowd certainly goes nuts when the three get called in at the end of games when Villanova is up by a lot (luckily for them, that happens often). But as Rafferty alluded to, the walk-ons can’t get caught up in the excitement and try to do something crazy on the court.

As veterans on the team — even leaders — they take those appearances, however brief, very seriously.

“We hear all the fans and they want the walk-ons to come in and do something fun or score,” Rafferty said. “But we’re just there to play the same way the guys play for 40 minutes. For us to get in there, we have to play Villanova basketball. And if there’s the opportunity to dive on the floor, you’ve gotta dive. You can’t care if you’re up 30 or down 30 — you just have to play the same way the guys play.”

There was a time where the Wildcats’ walk-ons perhaps cared more about having fun than fostering a certain kind of culture. As freshmen, Lowe and Farrell, along with then-walk on Nick McMahon, earned the nickname “Bench Mob” for their creative antics on the sideline, especially in March.

But as Villanova went from an upstart in 2012-13 (following a bad 13-19 season in 2011-12) to a nationally dominant program the last three seasons, the walk-ons changed too. They will, of course, still be animated on the bench at times when No. 3 Villanova opens postseason play in the Big East Tournament on Thursday. But their biggest role these days is going hard in practice and counseling some of the younger players.

That’s why, during interviews and other media appearances over the past few weeks, head coach Jay Wright has gone out of his way to mention Lowe, Farrell and Rafferty when he praises a senior class that also includes standouts Ryan Arcidiacono and Daniel Ochefu — the one that recently became the all-time winningest class in program history.

“My freshman year, they had to bring energy because we were at a low point in our program,” Arcidiacono said. “But from that point on, they’ve brought just great commitment to the team. They’re leaders on this team. Everyone looks to them as leaders. To have five seniors, not just two, means a lot. We’re on the floor but they can control everything from how people come off the bench, go into games, how they run off the floor — all the little things that no one sees, especially in games and in practice.”

Perhaps not everyone would be suited for such a behind-the-scenes role without much playing time to show for it. And it should be noted that all three walk-ons had opportunities to play at Division III schools. Rafferty, in fact, played at D-III Tufts following a good high school career at Malvern Prep before deciding to move closer to home because of a family member’s illness.

At that point, he expected his college basketball career to be over. But, with the urging of his high school coach, he made the necessary connections to try out for the Wildcats as a walk-on. Perhaps it shouldn’t have been surprising that he made it; his father, Kevin Sr., was also a walk-on at a Big 5 school — at rival Saint Joseph’s.

“The Holy War was interesting in our house,” Rafferty said with a smile. “But now he’s a converted Villanova fan. He’s got the flag outside our house and everything.”

Lowe and Farrell, meanwhile, have been on campus from the very beginning, deciding to initially attend Villanova largely for academic reasons. They never expected just how good the ’Nova hoops team would become, with their classmates Arcidiacono and Ochefu leading the way. Or how Wright would call on them to be leaders.

But they’ve relished the unique opportunity.

“For us, it’s really about carrying the culture of the program around,” Farrell said. “Obviously every year we get new guys coming out of high school. For us, it’s about instilling the culture of playing hard, playing together, playing smart and playing with pride. That’s really what we do on a daily basis — try to hammer it into the younger guys’ brains so the culture lasts forever and it just gets passed on.”

“We all try to implement the core values that Coach Wright preaches,” Lowe added. “That was kind of our role in the resurgence of Villanova. That was really the key to our success — we had to get back to defense, rebounding, playing hard, playing together, playing smart and having way more pride in the Villanova jersey than the other team has in their own.”

Like any seniors, the end of the season has been jam-packed with emotions for Villanova’s three walk-ons. There was the senior night ceremony on Feb. 20, then the final game at the Pavilion last week and then the regular-season finale at the Wells Fargo Center on Saturday, complete with an on-court celebration of the team’s third straight Big East championship.

But there’s still more games to be played as Villanova now eyes its second straight Big East Tournament title and a deep run in the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2009. No matter what happens in the coming weeks, though, the walk-ons will depart the program grateful for being part of one of the best teams in college basketball — and forming special bonds along the way.

“The opportunity to be a walk-on here is the opportunity of a lifetime,” said Lowe, who added he might even try to go into business with Rafferty and Farrell after they all graduate later this year. “I’m so happy Coach Wright gave me the opportunity. I didn’t know it would go as well as it did the last four years. But the team has welcomed me, Coach has welcomed me and it’s been an incredible experience — life-changing for sure.”

Team Feature #9 March 1, 2016

Jay Wright and Villanova Believe They’ve Found the Perfect Balance For a Deep NCAA Tournament Run Brian Hamilton, si.com As he walked down a hallway in Milwaukee's Bradley Center late Saturday afternoon following an 89–79 win over Marquette, Jay Wright encountered a tall kid with a smiling face, coming from the opposite direction. Michael Massimino had caught Villanova's coach by surprise, but Wright eagerly extended a hand. "'Mass'!" he exclaimed. "I forgot you were here! Great to see you!" Michael, the grandson of former Wildcats coach Rollie Massimino, returned the handshake and Wright kept moving. But it figured: Around every corner, there's some reminder about what the No. 3 Wildcats are expected to accomplish March.

The elder Massimino famously guided the Wildcats to the national title in 1985, knocking off defending champion Patrick Ewing and Georgetown in the championship game. Almost a quarter-century later, Wright returned Villanova to the Final Four where it lost in 2009 to eventual champion North Carolina. Since, the Wildcats have not once escaped the first weekend of the NCAA tournament, losing five times as the higher seed—including twice as a No. 2 and last year, in the Round of 32, as a No. 1. So, naturally, a conversation with Villanova's coach revolves around this year's version of the plan, and most importantly, whether or not it will work.

"I think it's a team that could have perfect balance," Wright said outside the visitors' locker room, somewhat quietly, like he was telling a secret, "and what's what we're striving for."

Though the Wildcats are perceived as a three-point reliant team, they may be able to challenge those presumptions this postseason. And there's actually nothing clandestine about the plan. While the three-pointer remains a necessary component to the Wildcats' offensive philosophy, this team has multiple viable options in the post plus guards and wings adept at penetration, even more so than last season's 33–3 club. And that may allow Villanova to withstand any shortfalls from long range, which can undercut a postseason run quickly.

Villanova is shooting 33.0% from three-point range going into a Tuesday meeting with DePaul, ranking 252nd in the country. That's not good. What is good: Shooting 57.1% on two-pointers, ranking in the 91st percentile in points per post-up possession (0.96) and the 99th percentile in points per possession on other around-the-basket attempts (1.301). Villanova might not have to make threes at an exceptionally high rate to thrive.

"Whenever we have our threes, we take those," junior forward Kris Jenkins said. "We always look to catch and shoot. When teams take it away, we're basketball players, so we all know we can make the right play. If the right play is to drive and not shoot a three, that's what we do. That's why our teams have been good for each other."

When a team is not proficient at connecting on long-range attempts, it might be advised to stop hoisting so many of them. (Surely some Villanova fans watching the 9-of-28 three-point shooting in that Round of 32 loss to N.C. State last year went hoarse shouting this.) But during nonconference play this season, a staggering 48.6% of Villanova's shots were three-pointers. Wright attributed that to three new backcourt/wing starters—juniors Jenkins and Josh Hart, as well as freshman guard Jalen Brunson—and the coaching staff's preference that they play hyper- aggressively early before toning it down later.

"So all the new guys were just firing," Wright said.

Gradually, the approach matured. Villanova's three-point shooting volume has dropped to 41.1% in Big East games, bringing the overall volume number to 42.9%. The adjustment suggests the Wildcats recognize their strengths and how to benefit from them. "We have a great two-point field goal percentage because everybody knows we'll take those threes," Wright said. "And they know we could make them. They don't fear them a lot, but they know we could. And the fear of making them makes you guard them. We get to the rim in space because people stay with our three-point shooters."

Wright chalks up the low three-point percentage mostly to poor shot selection while he and his staff allowed those new starters to find their spots. He otherwise shrugs it off. He recalls playing Penn on Dec. 28 and Quakers coach Steve Donahue game-planning to hug up on the three-point line and never leave shooters; the Wildcats scored the first 14 points, all on two-pointers or free throws and won 77–57 anyway. But it was instructive in how significant a threat the shot is for Villanova—and, even when it is removed from the equation, how resourceful Wright's team can be.

If he's seeking perfect balance, Wright may have an ideal roster for the hunt. Hart, at 6'5", has the length to finish in a cluttered lane; per Synergy Sports Data, he's at 1.112 points per possession on drives, including 1.155 when he goes left (which is good for the 94th percentile nationally). The sturdy 6'6", 240-pound Jenkins is at 1.062 points per possession on post-ups (91st percentile nationally) and 1.000 on drives. (They're the team's top two scorers at 15.1 and 11.9 points per game, respectively.)

Even freshman guard Jalen Brunson, at 6'3", is a fearless lane crasher with the strength to complete the play; he's shooting 52.5% from two-point range and is at a solid 0.954 points per possession on drives. Meanwhile, 6'11" center Daniel Ochefu's 10.7 points per game are a career-best, and he's scored in double-figures in four of six outings since a three-game absence due to a concussion suffered during a practice in late January.

In sum, this does not revolutionize how Villanova operates. But set the numbers from last year and this year side-to- side, and the current batch of Wildcats indeed appears to have a greater capacity to attack effectively:

* 2014–15 season: 52.9% two-point shooting, 38.9% three-point shooting, 1.172 points per possession around the basket (79th percentile nationally).

* 2015–16 season: 59.1% two-point shooting, 33% three-point shooting, 1.301 points per possession around the basket (99th percentile nationally).

It's a good argument against the Wildcats settling for anything but the best beyond-the-arc looks. Consider some of the game-turning moments against Marquette: After the Golden Eagles' got within six early in the second half, Hart scored twice at the rim, followed by an Ochefu bucket off a post isolation, and the Wildcats' lead doubled in a blink. Later, when Marquette's Wally Ellenson hit consecutive three-pointers to cut the deficit to 79–68, Wright called timeout with 3:55 left and ran a play through Ochefu out of the break. The center hit a cutting Hart for a layup to quell the comeback attempt.

"We need to use him," Wright said of Ochefu, whose 18-point, 12-rebound effort was his first double-double since Jan. 6. "We really do. He's a force."

On the very next offensive trip following that Ochefu-Hart connection, Jenkins launched a three-pointer early in the shot clock instead of working the ball around and draining the clock with a 13-point lead. It missed, and it reinforced the point: Villanova is better off driving before all else.

"We're trying to get to where we feel like if they're taking away threes, we can get to the rim," Wright said. "If they're really good guarding us one on one, we can put it in the post and play out of the post. That's what we're striving for. We're not a finished product."

But then Villanova seems to be a lot of things. It seems to be willing to pursue points at the rim, and that would seem to be insurance against a fateful drought from long distance in the NCAA tournament. It seems to have the requisite defensive chops, ranking sixth nationally in adjusted efficiency. It seems to be legitimately among the best bets in a year where nothing is guaranteed, losing only to fellow national title contenders Oklahoma, Virginia and Xavier on the road and also dropping an overtime contest at then-No. 16 Providence at the Wells Fargo Center on Jan. 24. It seems like Villanova should feel good about its chances. But it felt good about its chances last year, too, as a No. 1 seed with a lineup full of experience. "We knew where we were," Wright said of that club, and everyone knows where they ended up. So it's on to another March and another NCAA tournament and another plan to emerge from the first weekend intact. A plan for perfect balance is as sound as any. And close to perfect might work, too.

Team Feature #10 February 24, 2016

Villanova Can’t Hide From NCAA Tourney Failures Dana O’Neil, ESPN.com

VILLANOVA, Pa. -- As he walked into the locker room at the CONSOL Energy Center in Pittsburgh last March, Daniel Ochefu knew what awaited him.

It would be more of the same. The same as it was in Buffalo's First Niagara Center the year before, and the same as it was in Kansas City's Sprint Center the year before that:

Tears, disappointment and the crushing blow of an end coming way too soon.

"Bad, it was bad,'' the Villanova senior said.

He knows it could happen again. Worse, he knows he might be one of the players suffering the most.

As we sprint to the finish line of this wildly unpredictable season, Villanova stands still amid the maelstrom as the picture of consistency. It is in its third consecutive week as the No. 1 team in college basketball, and at 24-3 is one of just four teams in the country (including Big East rival Xavier -- which the Wildcats will face at 7 p.m. ET Wednesday) with fewer than four losses. It is the only top-ranked team that hasn't lost to an unranked team this season, and it is No. 2 in the RPI rankings.

All of that is merely a continuation of the theme for the Cats, who in the past three years have lost a combined 11 games and in the past seven are 165-54 -- a ridiculously impressive 75.3 winning percentage.

And yet.

We all know the "yet," right? The albatross around the Wildcats' neck? The stain that threatens the image of even the nattily dressed Jay Wright?

The elephant that keeps greeting Ochefu and his teammates in the locker room?

"We don't want to be known as the team that's always high-ranked but gets knocked out of the tournament early," Ochefu said.

And yet . . .

That's exactly what Villanova is.

Since their 2009 Final Four run, the Wildcats are 0-for-the-first-weekend in the NCAA tournament, negating -- at least in the eyes of fans and the general basketball public -- everything else that came before.

 2015: No. 8 seed NC State 71, No. 1 seed Villanova 68 (round of 32)

 2014: No. 7 seed UConn 77, No. 2 seed Villanova 65 (round of 32)  2013: No. 8 seed North Carolina 78, No. 9 seed Villanova 71 (round of 64)

 2011: No. 8 seed George Mason 61, No. 9 seed Villanova 57 (round of 64)

 2010: No. 10 seed Saint Mary's 75, No. 2 seed Villanova 68 (round of 32)

So here we go again. Villanova is about to be rewarded with yet another high seed and another easy first-weekend trip (likely to Brooklyn) but dogged the whole way by its past failures.

"It's not unfair at all,'' said Wright, Villanova's coach since 2001. "I get it. No excuses. We've got to own it.''

But can they get beyond it?

That's the question on everyone's lips, the question that Wright has been asked since October. Even fellow coaches who wished him well at the start of the season followed it with a reminder -- that nothing Villanova did this year would matter if it failed again in March.

That thought prompted Wright to sit his players down for a talk. He knew if he was hearing it, so were they.

"We had to tell them, 'Look, we're going to enjoy this season,' " Wright said. "Players only get so many years to play. We didn't want them to dismiss it because everyone was telling them how they had to get past the first weekend. Enjoy the season.''

And so they did, rolling to their first No. 1 ranking in school history, and now with a showdown against second- place Xavier, in position for a third straight Big East regular-season crown.

But rather than quiet the skeptics, all of that success has only helped the elephant grow into a mastodon.

"Hear the same thing every year. Won't survive the weekend,'' someone replied to a tweet about Wright's belief that, unlike last season's squad, this one hasn't plateaued and can still get better.

Wright said he has done more interviews since the Wildcats took over the top spot and spied more people in the hotel lobbies on the road, and virtually every conversation is the same. There are the pleasantries, the congratulations on the ranking and the gaudy record, and then the hammer.

"It outweighs everything else,'' he said. "Everything pales in comparison to that.''

As if simply ditching the monkey on their back isn't enough, the Wildcats are trying to carry the mantle in Philadelphia, a city that has a serious aversion to sports success.

Since Villanova won the national title in 1985, just one other team in the city has hosted a championship parade, the 2008 Phillies. That glow is but a distant memory, what with an assortment of professional teams so wildly inept that it would be comical, except that sports actually matters to Philadelphians.

The Eagles just finished 7-9, fired coach Chip Kelly and hired Doug Pederson in the hopes of reviving the Andy Reid glory years (where at least the team went to the NFC Championship Game or Super Bowl before losing).

The Flyers canned coach Craig Berube in April and are still next to last in the Eastern Conference.

If you haven't heard, the 76ers have tanked their way into a pit so deep, the league brought in Jerry Colangelo as chairman of basketball operations to try to fix the mess. They've won eight games this season, lost 47 and have three first-round draft picks in a draft many consider to be mundane. "Yeah, and I heard one projection for the Phillies for like 61-101,'' said Villanova senior Ryan Arcidiacono, who grew up in suburban Philadelphia. "My family does joke about it. They've said to me, 'I don't know what's going to happen once you're done. There's not much else to look forward to.' I guess we're kind of it.''

Everyone -- Wright, the players -- they all say they don't feel any pressure and that they can do what no one else seems to be able to: judge their season's worth on its totality.

Wright said -- and he knows it will come off as spin -- that he has used that NC State loss in last season's NCAA tourney as a positive teaching tool.

He points to a team that couldn't shoot (the Wildcats shot 31 percent), couldn't even dunk and generally played worse than it had in four months and yet never stopped working. He remembered timeouts where his seniors, JayVaughn Pinkston and Darrun Hilliard, never showed panic but insisted that Villanova keep "doing what we do." And finally, he recalled how the game ended:

As absolutely horribly as Villanova played, it still had the ball in its hands with an open look at a go-ahead 3-pointer with 20 seconds to play.

"We know we did everything we could to try to find a way to win at the end, and that's all we ask of our guys,'' Wright said. "We know that's a real negative to our fans, and we deal with that reality, but that's not how we saw it.''

Except Wright also said that he couldn't bring himself to watch the game tape for two months, waiting for a cross- country flight where he could pop the disc into his laptop in privacy.

And Ochefu said he returned after the loss to NC State and watched just one more game all season -- Wisconsin's upset of Kentucky in the Final Four -- purposefully avoiding the tournament he was no longer a part of.

"I felt like it was our time, with the seniors we had, the leaders,'' Ochefu said. "That locker room, that was the worst. That could be me this year. I'm not thinking about it now, but I know as soon as the tournament comes, I will be. I'll be thinking about it a lot.''

Hard not to, what with the elephant clogging up the room.

Team Feature #11 February 23, 2016

Why Is Villanova No. 1? Defense Plays Big Role Joe Juliano, Philadelphia Inquirer

"Our three best defensive players are all gone at the same time. So I think that we've got real issues defensively. We've got a real challenge on our hands. We're really concerned." - Villanova coach Jay Wright at the start of 2015- 16 preseason practice.

"Why has our defense worked so well? I really don't have an explanation. I'm really surprised." – Wright, speaking Tuesday.

Villanova has climbed to the top of the national rankings thanks to its excellent all-around play, but the way the Wildcats have played defense could be considered the primary reason for their success.

The numbers have been a bit astounding. The Wildcats (24-3), who take on No. 5 Xavier on Wednesday night in Cincinnati, are ranked eighth in the latest NCAA Division I statistics in scoring defense, allowing an average of 61.5 points, and ninth in field-goal percentage defense at 38.5 percent.

Villanova is 21-0 when holding the opposition to fewer than 70 points. It has limited 16 opponents to less than 40 percent shooting and defeated all of them. The Cats' three defeats have come to the teams that shot the best percentages and scored the most points against them - Virginia (56.5 percent, 86 points), Oklahoma (46.7 percent, 78 points) and Providence (46.2 percent, 82 points).

"It's a really good defensive team," Temple coach Fran Dunphy said after his team lost 83-67 to the Wildcats last week. "Their defensive numbers are off the charts typically. On the defensive side of things, they make you work every single trip down the floor."

After losing Darrun Hilliard and JayVaughn Pinkston to graduation and Dylan Ennis to Oregon as a graduate transfer, Wright made some adjustments to the defense, including the adoption of a zone. While the Cats have played more zone this season than they have in years, they prefer a switching man-to-man a vast majority of the time, sometimes combining it with three-quarter-court pressure.

"Because of the adjustments, I thought we wouldn't be able to be as good," Wright said. "I think we're a little bit better offensively, so we're not having to defend in transition as much. When you're missing shots, you have to defend in transition. I think we're making more shots, that helps us a little bit."

Wright then paused, smiled, and added, "That's really my only explanation so far."

Junior Josh Hart, one of three Wildcats with 30 or more steals, said teamwork is why the defense works as well as it does.

"We're always ready to step up for each other," said Hart, the team's leading scorer. "That's the biggest thing. One person can go for a steal, try to make a play, and he has the confidence that the person behind him is going to step up. You can be aggressive because you know the next person has your back, and the next person has his back."

Center Daniel Ochefu is the last line of defense, ranking second in the Big East in blocked shots with an average of 1.8 per game. But he also has the best view of the defense to make sure everyone is in the right place. "I take a lot of pride to make sure my guys know I'm back them talking them through things and covering for their mistakes when I have to," the 6-foot-11 senior said.

Wright said the players who are getting their first significant playing time this season also have done a fine job of grasping the defensive concepts, including junior center Darryl Reynolds and redshirt freshman swingman Mikal Bridges.

"Darryl always has been a good post defender but he's become a really good perimeter defender," the coach said. "He's become really good at knowing our scouting reports.

"With Mikal, it's his physical and mental toughness. Last year the physicality of college play and the demands of knowing the scouting report were tough for him. So I thought he would struggle in his first year [of playing] a little more than he has. But he's been very good."

The 6-7 Bridges, from Great Valley, scored 1,340 points in his high school career but has been a real find on defense. He has guarded some of the toughest offensive players in the Big East, including Providence's Kris Dunn, Georgetown's D'Vauntes Smith-Rivera and Seton Hall's Isaiah Whitehead.

Team Feature #12 February 22, 2016

Villanova Won’t Be Undone By Three-Point Issues Dick Jerardi, Phiadelphia Daily News

MY TOP FOUR NCAA Tournament seeds if the selections were today.

East: Villanova

South: North Carolina

Midwest: Kansas

West: Oklahoma

The conventional wisdom on No. 1 Villanova is the Wildcats will lose in the NCAA on the day they have a bad three-point shooting game. Beyond the fact that there are many rich folks who have spent a lifetime betting against conventional wisdom, there is also this fact: It's wrong.

After beating Butler, 77-67, Saturday at the Pavilion, Villanova is 24-3, 13-1 Big East even though it has not been a very proficient three-point shooting team this season, hitting just 32.6 percent, 263rd nationally. But the mere threat of the three has made every other part of its offensive game better.

The Wildcats are shooting 57.1 percent on twos, fourth nationally. And when they get to the foul line, they are deadly. After making a ridiculous 89 of 102 (87.3 percent) free throws over their last five games, the 'Cats are shooting 78.1 percent from the line, third nationally. Combine that with a top five defense and you have the No. 1 team in the country.

By the way, in that NCAA loss to North Carolina State last March in Pittsburgh, Villanova made nine threes, but shot just 10-for-33 on twos while the Wolfpack were 21-for-42.

Villanova's seniors, who have a school-record 106 wins and counting as a class, were honored before the Butler game. Whatever their final number may be, their record may not last long. The junior class will need 21 wins next season to break it.

The junior class has never lost a Big 5 game or a game on campus. They are 86-11. Juniors Josh Hart (22 points) and Kris Jenkins (20) were right in the middle of the Butler win. The Wildcats had a working margin much of the game, fell behind midway through the second half and then pulled away again.

Senior point guard Ryan Arcidiacono had 17 assists and 0 turnovers last week in the wins at Temple and over Butler. The Wildcats, one of the country's best passing teams, get assists on 60 percent on their baskets, 38th nationally.

The Game of the Year in the Big East is Wednesday at Xavier. Win it and Villanova has the regular-season title. Lose and its conference lead shrinks, but the big picture does not change: Villanova absolutely has a chance to play in the Final Four.

Team Feature #13 February 7, 2016

Baker Dunleavy: Nova Basketball’s Chief of Staff Mike Jensen, Philadelphia Inquirer

The texts come in. Villa assistant coach Baker Dunleavy usually notices them right after a game, after he grabs his phone in the locker room.

"He just can't help himself during a game," Dunleavy said of the texter. "He's a junkie, a basketball addict."

The texter used to coach the Lakers and then the Trail Blazers and then the Clippers, but now Mike Dunleavy has time to watch one of his sons, Mike, play in the NBA and another one, Baker, work as Jay Wright's top Villanova assistant.

Dad can't text Baker on the court, but he watches a lot of Villanova games. Maybe he'll suggest how to defend a certain ball screen, or not guarding the in-bounder when full-court-pressing.

"As if I'm going to read it during the game in my pocket and get in the huddle and make the adjustment," Dunleavy said.

The son gets a kick out of it: "I think it's therapeutic for him."

It speaks to Baker Dunleavy's lineage, but also his ease with that lineage, that Baker brings up the texts, both getting a kick out of them and respecting their content.

Given his lineage, Dunleavy's path to this job might seem obvious. It really wasn't. He did not show up as a Villanova recruit with any thought of coaching. He also didn't play much.

"Coach Wright was always honest - I wasn't a Big East player," Dunleavy said. "I was recruited to be a scholarship player who could help give depth, and that was a big-time class - if guys were to leave early, you have an experienced guy ready to play."

Dunleavy was the extra guy in the class that showed up at Villanova in 2002 and really got things going under Wright. There were center Jason Fraser, forward Curtis Sumpter and guards Allen Ray and Randy Foye.

After graduation, Dunleavy went to Wall Street, a stockbroker, working at Merrill Lynch and Bank of America.

Was he pretty good at it?

"You know what, there were a lot of athletes who worked in my area," Dunleavy said. "It's a competitive business. I really enjoyed it. At the end of every day, there's a score sheet. You either lost money or made money. That part of it was really cool. I really believed if I didn't have this draw back to basketball, I'd still be doing it."

But he couldn't shake that pull.

"Every once in a while I would bring it up to him," Dunleavy said of conversations he'd have with his old coach. "He would try to convince me to stay. . . . I kind of begged my way back in." "We have a great network on Wall Street, it's called the Villanova Financial Club," Wright said, mentioning that some former Villanova stars were involved. "I was really proud he was in it, and doing well. All those guys were telling me this kid's a superstar, he's going to be great. I knew he was making good money."

When Dunleavy kept talking up basketball, Wright helped him get work as an analyst for SNY in New York, figuring that would fill the hole.

"It might have been two straight years," Wright said of their conversations about Dunleavy's getting into coaching. "Then I was like, I'd love to have him here obviously."

So Dunleavy worked his way up the staff from an operations job. His current role, incorporating assistant duties of scouting and running the offense in practice, is equivalent to chief of staff.

"He oversees complete day-to-day operations," Wright said. "Our whole basketball operation. Everything we're doing recruiting, with the players off the court - everything I need to know about, he's on top of it."

Wright makes it clear he can't have a yes man in the job.

"I think he learned that your responsibility is to tell what I don't want to hear, tell me when it's not going to be comfortable," Wright said. "He'll always tell me the truth, which is the most valuable thing, and usually the hardest thing for a former player to do, but that's why I respect him."

Not being a star player, Dunleavy said, "It also makes you hungry. A lot of players who didn't accomplish everything they wanted as a player still have that hunger to compete. . . . I had great aspirations as a player - it wasn't meant to be. I have those same aspirations as a coach."

"If there's a value I provide during a game, it's been being around him a long time," Dunleavy said. "I know how he thinks."

He's learned when to bring something up they've talked about, Dunleavy said, and when to back off.

As for those texts from dad, Wright doesn't hear about them.

"I don't know when he's doing it," Wright said. "His dad is one of the smartest basketball people I know, and he comes from that, so even though Baker looks at the game differently than I do, he's been in the program and had success, and knows what I want."

"Everything he says makes sense," Dunleavy said of his father. "It's always very smart. And it's NBA execution. We have a different way. Sometimes those things merge and I think, 'I should bring that up.' But other times, 'OK, that would work for teams that practiced that and did that the whole season.' You can't just say it and do it. . . . He's not trying to convince us to change things. He just enjoys the discussion."

Team Feature #14 February 6, 2016

In Case We Needed Reminding, Villanova Displays Why It’s A Final Four Favorite Reid Forgrave, foxsports.com

PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- There comes a time of clarity during a college basketball season, a moment when the doubts and uncertainties of the past drift away and things become obviously, unmistakably transparent.

I had one of those moments on Saturday afternoon at the Dunkin' Donuts Center. Going into the Villanova- Providence game, the biggest game at The Dunk in who knows how long, I had considered the Big East to still be a conference with several teams that, on any given night, you could call the league's best team.

I had thought Xavier, tall and athletic and deep, was the one team in the Big East that had the most serious Final Four dreams. I had thought Providence, with the top 1-2 punch in college hoops, was a dark-horse Final Four threat as well. I thought Georgetown was an extraordinarily talented team that, despite looking likely to miss the NCAA tournament, had it in them to pull off some sort of late-season miracle and become dangerous in March.

It wasn't that I was overlooking Jay Wright and his Villanova Wildcats. It certainly wasn't that I thought they weren't a great basketball team; when they flew into a Providence snowstorm Friday afternoon on a bumpy charter flight, the Wildcats were 19-3 and, with only one Big East loss, firmly in control of the league.

But that lone Big East loss was at home to Providence, and the Dunkin' Donuts Center was rocking on Saturday afternoon, and Villanova's starting big man, senior Daniel Ochefu, was wearing a suit and tie, still sidelined with a concussion.

I fully expected a hungry Providence team to upend the third-ranked team in the country.

It wasn't that I was overlooking the Big East powerhouse that Wright has created. Really, I wasn't.

It was more that I had just taken the Wildcats for granted.

Then I watched Villanova jet out to a 10-0 lead. I watched that lead balloon to 29-10. I watched an electric home crowd go silent, and stay silent, and then even start to boo the inconsistent home team during a 72-60 Wildcats win. I watched Villanova display the best ball movement this side of Norman, Oklahoma. I watched Villanova junior Josh Hart prove why he's the toughest player in the Big East and perhaps the most underrated player in the country as he got 14 points and 13 rebounds -- all while forcing future top-five pick Kris Dunn to commit more turnovers (six) than he made shots (four). I watched a reserve big man from Kobe Bryant's Lower Merion High School, junior Darryl Reynolds, flash a little bit of his inner Kobe as he went off for a career-high 19 points and 10 rebounds (after scoring fewer than 100 points the past three seasons combined).

Simply put, I watched a Jay Wright team do what Jay Wright teams do: play more consistent basketball, night in and night out, than any other program in the country.

And I was reminded of two things about Villanova that may be obvious -- but also are so, so easy to take for granted:

This program is in its own tier in the Big East. And in a college basketball season that's as unpredictable as this one, this team should be considered as solid of a Final Four favorite as there is.

I know, I know. You're going to talk about last season, when an experienced Villanova squad nabbed a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament and then proceeded to bow out before the second weekend. You're going to talk about how Wright hasn't made a Sweet 16 since 2009, his only Final Four team. You going to talk about how Villanova is always pretty good but never great.

That's fair. But it's also judging a program's success based solely on a few games in March instead of the entire season. The Wildcats lost to a super-talented but underachieving N.C. State team a year ago, they lost to eventual national champion UConn the year before that, and we're going to say those two March losses determine this season's destiny?

Please.

Over the past three seasons, Villanova is a stunning 82-11. That's tied with Wichita State for the fewest losses in college hoops during that span. After Villanova's throttling of a dangerous Providence team in a lit road environment on Saturday, the Wildcats ascended to No. 1 in the KenPom.com rankings, the bible of college hoops statistics. Even though Providence coach Ed Cooley lauded Villanova for its offensive performance, the truth is this team is doing it on the back of its defense, the fourth-most efficient defense in the country.

It can be easy to take for granted how self-sustaining Wright's program has become, because greatness is monotonous and because Wright values hard workers over five-star talents and tough-as-nails teammates over individual stars. But the truth is you're taking these guys for granted at your own peril.

That's the lesson I learned on Saturday: This Villanova team is so different from the team that was a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament a year ago.

And this Villanova team might be even better come March.

"It is a really different team," Wright said afterward. "We had proven men on last year's team. JayVaughn Pinkston was a five-year guy. Dylan Ennis was a five-year guy, basically. Darrun Hilliard was a four-year starter. And the two other starters, [Ochefu and Ryan Arcidiacono] had been starting since their freshman year."

This season?

"Now our juniors are starting for the first time," Wright said. "Jalen Brunson is a freshman."

Villanova had 16 turnovers on Saturday. Often, against a team as talented as Providence and in an environment as raucous as Saturday's, that's a recipe for a loss. Especially when you add in the fact that Ochefu, the team's top interior presence, was injured.

Yet after the first few minutes, the outcome never felt in doubt.

Villanova is the best team in the Big East. Of this I feel certain. Jay Wright teams may have the most consistent identities of any teams in college hoops.

I don't know if this year will bring another March disappointment. My gut tells me the way this season is playing out, with zero dominant teams, plays right into the hands of a team like Villanova: calm and well-coached, unselfish and with unceasing motors, star-less and ego-less, and deep -- so deep. So circle a date on your calendar: Feb. 24. That's when Villanova heads to Xavier to play the team that's nipping at their heels in the Big East. Xavier has a healthy Edmond Sumner now, different from when Villanova throttled Xavier more than a month ago. That game will put this theory on Villanova to the test.

And listen to what Wright said just before his team hopped back on a charter flight to Philly: "These guys can get better, and they know it."

For the rest of the Big East and for future NCAA tournament opponents, that might be the scariest thought of them all.

Team Feature #15 January 29, 2016

Villanova Still in the Grind Bob Ford, Philadelphia Inquirer

Villanova is 20 games into the regular season with 11 more to go, and the Wildcats will tick off another beginning noon Sunday in Madison Square Garden against St. John's. On Monday, the calendar flips to February, and the quick slide toward the madness of March will have begun.

Except that's not how it feels on the inside.

"To me, it feels like we're dead center in the middle of the grind right now. There's no looking back. There's no looking forward. You're just in it," said coach Jay Wright. "Somewhere around the middle of February, you pop your head out, and people are talking about tournament seeding, and you feel close to the end. But right now it feels like it's been going on forever, and it's never going to end. And, as a basketball person, you love that."

Some days he loves better than others. A week ago, when the Wildcats lost in the Wells Fargo Center to Providence, an overtime defeat that broke a 22-game Big East winning streak, he didn't love that quite as much.

Villanova is a very good team, currently ranked sixth in the nation and with 17 wins in those 20 previous games, but there are things the Wildcats have to do to keep winning. They can't just throw their shoes on the floor and wrap up another one.

"I think our guys know they can lose to anybody, but when you win and you get on a roll like we did, you also think you can beat anybody," Wright said. "The danger in that is you don't pay attention to the details to make sure it happens."

Against Providence, one of three Big East teams ranked among the top 10, Villanova built an 11-point first-half lead and then became complacent, according to Wright. The Wildcats settled for the three-pointers that Providence's defense allowed, didn't get to the foul line and ultimately paid the price.

The other two losses this season came against Oklahoma, currently in a battle with North Carolina for the No. 1 spot in the nation, and Virginia, now ranked No. 11. Both were the result of defensive lapses against teams that shoot extremely well. That wasn't the case against Providence, a game in which Villanova held the Friars to 66 points in regulation.

"We got smacked in the face, but I think we've responded well. For us, it's about defensive rebounding and shot selection," Wright said. "We know we've got to get a lot better. I think our guys get it."

What Villanova has avoided thus far is a loss that would truly hurt them in the eyes of the NCAA tournament selection committee. Other Big East schools are struggling to stay relevant, like Seton Hall, which lost at home to Villanova by a single point. The Pirates are still wearing an early home loss to Long Beach State. The same goes for Georgetown, which has a decent enough record but has a losing record against teams ranked in the top 50 RPI and lost at home to UNC-Asheville. Butler started 12-1, including a win over No. 21 Purdue, but has stumbled during conference play to the edge of the NCAA tournament bubble. It happens quickly.

"We could have lost to Marquette. We could have lost to Seton Hall at home and at their place. We got down in those games but fought through it," Wright said. While fighting through the schedule and grinding from game to game, Villanova has been able to fashion a solid eight-man rotation, with junior forward Darryl Reynolds and redshirt freshman swingman Mikal Bridges developing into reliable players who add length to the mix.

"Those are the final two pieces. Reynolds and Bridges have really come into their own and given us legitimate depth," Wright said. "We're getting good minutes from them, and I think we're getting better with all our young players, including Jalen [Brunson], who's a freshman; Phil Booth, a sophomore; and now Bridges and Reynolds, who's really getting minutes for the first time."

The grind continues on Sunday against St. John's and if there is a danger of complacency, it would be in a game like this. St. John's is 7-14, winless in the conference, and winless entirely since Dec. 13. Wright fought that fight by emphasizing in practice that St. John's is similar in some ways to Providence and will provide a good test of the lessons from that loss.

"They have length and athleticism, like Providence, and can give you trouble by extending their zone to take away your three-point shooting," Wright said. "We didn't do a good job making decisions against Providence, so in one sense this game scares me, but it's also a great challenge."

Wright's point is not backed up by conference statistics, which find St. John's ranked last in three-point defense. But if it got Villanova through the work of another week's practices, then it served its purpose.

Unlike the groundhog, the Wildcats still have another two weeks before they can pop their heads up and see the end of winter's long road toward spring. Until then, if it is Sunday, then it must be New York, the start of a week that includes a home game against Creighton and a trip to Providence for an important rematch.

"I feel like we're in a good spot," said Jay Wright, looking only at that spot, not ahead and not back. It is still the time to grind and not yet the time to find out where all the grinding leads in the end.

Team Feature #16 January 21, 2016

Villanova Finding Ways to Win on the Road Joe Juliano, Philadelphia Inquirer

NEWARK, N.J. – Life on the road in the Big East Conference can be a real strain on players and coaches alike, and that applies to Villanova even with its lofty national ranking.

For the third straight time on the road, the No. 4 Wildcats were extended for a full 40 minutes but somehow found their way out of it to stay unbeaten in the 2015-16 conference schedule and keep intact their year-long streak without a loss.

While Villanova coach Jay Wright wasn't exactly pleased for most of the game with his team's defensive effort Wednesday night against Seton Hall, the defense made key plays in the final minute with the help of 6-foot-11 center Daniel Ochefu and squeaked out a 72-71 victory over the Pirates at the Prudential Center.

So over an 11-day stretch, the Wildcats went 3-0 on the road at then-No. 18 Butler, Georgetown and Seton Hall, winning them by five points, five points and one point. Wright was asked what that run does for a team.

"It beats them up physically, but I'm sure everyone in the league feels the same way," he said. "You gain confidence to be able to find ways to win. We certainly haven't played our best games, especially the last two on the road. But we were able to find ways to win and that gives you confidence."

The Wildcats (17-2, 7-0) posted their ninth straight victory and their 22d in a row in the Big East dating back to their last loss, on Jan. 19, 2015, at Georgetown.

The Cats have a pair of seniors who are instrumental in helping their team find a way to win. Ryan Arcidiacono hit the go-ahead layup with 32.4 seconds to play and Ochefu, who sat out 12 minutes of the second half in foul trouble, came up with a block of Derrick Gordon's drive and a deflection that went out of bounds off Isaiah Whitehead in the closing seconds.

"Our defense was subpar for the first 35-36 minutes of the game," said Josh Hart, who registered his fourth double- double (15 points, 10 rebounds) in the last five games. "Then after that, it was just that we wanted to win. We were going to will ourselves to win. The last four minutes, we wanted it, and that's about it."

The Wildcats trailed for four minutes the entire game but the Pirates (13-5, 3-3) stayed close because of their ability to drive to the basket and finish. Isaiah Whitehead, who scored 19 of his 21 points in the second half, knocked down a three-point basket with 2 minutes, 28 seconds to play to give Seton Hall its first lead, at 69-67, since the 13-minute mark of the first half.

Ochefu tied it with a layup on the ensuing possession and the game stayed tied until Arcidiacono surprised the Seton Hall defense by keeping the ball, dribbling down the lane and laying it in with 32.4 seconds to play. Hart added a free throw with 5.6 seconds left, providing the final margin.

The physical play contributed to an interminable second half when the referees called 31 personal fouls yielding 44 free-throw attempts. Wright admitted, "It was ugly," but Villanova has shown it isn't reluctant to play that style of basketball.

Team Feature #17 January 6, 2016

Will Big East Prepare Villanova For NCAA Tournament John Smallwood, Philadelphia Daily News LET'S BE HONEST: The Big East Conference is not what it used to be.

In the old Big East, the one that was perennially the best conference in America before the Atlantic Coast Conference strip-mined it of too many top-level programs, league play was an exercise in nightly bloodletting.

With seven schools usually headed to the NCAA Tournament and a couple more always on the bubble, a team would play 16 to 20 high-octane games and that would be before the cauldron of the Big East Tournament.

Teams had no choice but to step up their games or risk being left in the dust of a stampede to the Big Dance.

No doubt, it was exhausting, but it was also excellent preparation for the NCAAs.

That's why virtually every Big East team, whether a top seed or not, always seemed ready come tournament time.

It always seemed that some Big East squad that had just snuck into the field would make a run to the Sweet 16, Elite Eight or Final Four.

But because of the football-driven realignment of college athletics, the Big East morphed into a league of basketball- centric private institutions.

Marquee programs like Syracuse, Connecticut, Louisville and Notre Dame were replaced by high-profile midmajors in Butler, Creighton and Xavier to complement holdovers Villanova, Georgetown, St. John's, Seton Hall, Providence, Marquette and DePaul.

It's not the monster that the original Big East became, but it is a strong basketball league in an NCAA world of athletics controlled by football.

It's a league in which Villanova clearly has moved to the top.

Wednesday night at the Pavilion, 11th-ranked Villanova beat Seton Hall, 72-63.

Since the "new" Big East settled into its 10-team identity for the 2013-14 season, the Wildcats (13-2, 3-0) have gone 35-4 in conference play.

In its 33-year history in the "original" Big East, the Wildcats had two seasons (1981-82 and 2005-06) with fewer than four league losses.

I would not insult Villanova, because Jay Wright's program is a legitimate consistent top-15 program. That would not change if the 'Cats played in the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12 or any other College Football Power Conference.

The 'Cats are in the Big East, obviously, and have rolled Xavier by 31, won at Creighton by 14 and now defeated Seton Hall by nine to start league play. That is impressive, but is it good for the Wildcats' long-term prospects as they move toward the NCAA Tournament?

On one hand, 'Nova's dominance in the Big East is a positive because it's resulted in the 'Cats getting their second- ever No.1 NCAA seed in 2015 and a No.2 seed in 2014.

The goal is always to get the highest seeding possible.

The opposite hand, however, shows that Villanova flamed out in their second game each of those tournaments.

After the Wildcats got pushed around by North Carolina State last season, more than a few stories suggested that Nova's top seeding was the result of an overrated Big East and the loss could be seen coming.

Of course, few people wrote that before the loss to the Wolfpack actually happened.

Still, the sentiment was out there, and with Nova's quick start in this Big East campaign, the thought of something similar happening this year is there.

Fair or not, the Wildcats' measure of success will be marked by whether they can make a Sweet 16 for the first time since advancing to the Final Four in 2009.

Will two months of Big East competition properly prepare the Wildcats for a successful run in this year's NCAA Tournament?

Early indications are that this is a much stronger year for the Big East. The quality top-to-bottom is the best it's been since the new structure. The Big East is the only conference with three teams (Providence, Xavier and Villanova) ranked in the Top 11.

The conference has a winning record head-to-head with the ACC, Big Ten, Pacific-12 and SEC.

It does not have to defend itself as one of the top conferences.

"I don't know if we need it, but we're going to get it," Villanova coach Jay Wright said of the expected challenges in the Big East. "It's coming this year.

"We're going to have to bring it night in and night out. I think that's what we can take the most from a night like this. If we are not shooting well, we have to find another way to win a game.

"This Big East Conference is a long way from over. There are a lot of good teams in this league."

In the "old" Big East, bringing it every night was the only way to survive.

As the "new" Big East lays its markers, establishes its rivalries and sets the tone going forward, it's going back to the cold-blooded, grind-it-out roots that allowed it to thrive as the best league in the country.

Sure, the record might not be as stellar for Villanova, but the "new" Big East becoming more like the "old" Big East is good for the Wildcats — something we'll look to see once March Madness comes around.

Player Feature #1 March 24, 2016

Arcidiacono Leads, and Wildcats Follow (Ryan Arcidiacono) Mike Kern, Philadelphia Daily News

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - This is Ryan Arcidiacono's team. Villanova coach Jay Wright has said as much, many times. So have his teammates, to a man.

And it's been his team for a while.

Thursday night, "Arch" played like someone who didn't want this to be his last college game.

The way the Wildcats followed his lead, maybe the next one won't be his last, either.

In their first Sweet 16 game in seven years, he came out and set the tone. The first eight minutes belonged to him. And to Villanova, even after top scorer Josh Hart took a seat on the bench with two fouls.

First, Arcidiacono hit a three-pointer from the left wing off an inbounds play. Then he fed Jalen Brunson for a three on the same side, and it was 8-0. Later he hit a 15-footer from the right wing on which he even drew contact and didn't get the call. That was followed by two free throws, off a sequence in which he'd knocked the ball away at midcourt to set up a break.

He would nail another jumper from the right wing, and get the call. He did miss the foul shot, but Miami was called for a lane violation so he got another chance. He didn't waste it. Finally, he swished a three from the left wing to make it 20-10. Soon it was 29-14.

While the Hurricanes would get close a few times, they never led. Eventually the Wildcats turned it into their third straight joke of this NCAA Tournament in as many opportunities, which means they're headed back to the Elite Eight for the third time in the Wright era. The last time it happened, they made it all the way to the national semifinals.

The best thing about this team is it has so many ways to beat you. Kris Jenkins went 8-for-10, 5-for-6 from the arc (including one from at least 35 feet to beat the clock), to go with a team-high nine rebounds on a night when there were few to be grabbed. And don't forget those four assists. Hart scored 14 in 21 minutes. Center Daniel Ochefu, like Arch, shot 7-for-11 despite "tweaking" his finally healed right ankle early in the second half.

But it has to start somewhere. It was hardly surprising that this one began with No. 15, which will be hanging from the Pavilion rafters some day.

"It just happened," said Arcidiacono, who like Jenkins played 35 minutes. "I did not want it to be the end (of his career). I want to go to Houston (next week). That's what we're playing for."

He has played 141 games and started 140, both more than any other Wildcat. The only reason he hasn't started them all is because as a sophomore he let a walk-on friend get his final moment on the Main Line. That didn't just happen. That's him. It's why he's been a captain since midway through his freshman season. "He just came out and did the things Arch does," said freshman guard Brunson, his roommate and backcourt partner. "We know he can do those things. It's almost like we expect it. He knew what we needed. It could have been anyone, but it was him."

Before this tourney began, Arch hadn't been past the second round. He was 2-3 in NCAA games, which tended to overshadow the fact that the Wildcats had won like 90 percent of their other games these last three seasons. None of that matters anymore. He won't have to leave with any kind of asterisk. One less thing, as a wise man once said. Whatever happens Saturday or beyond, he's left a lasting impression. And it could still get a whole lot better before he has to hug Wright for the last time.

"We've seen him do that many times in his career," Hart said. "We love it. A lot of (opponents) hate it. He's our rock. Whatever we need, he gives to us. It's amazing to see. He's just so mature. He put us on his back and carried us (early). And that makes the rest of us more dangerous."

Arch finished with 21 points, matching Jenkins. He had four assists and three steals. And one turnover, an uncharacteristic giveaway near halfcourt early in the second half. That happens, too. Just not very often. After his opening flurry, he went 20 minutes without scoring. Then he added back-to-back buckets, a layup to beat the clock and a three that made it a 12-point game with 14 minutes to go. The rest of the way he was content to mostly let everyone else do their thing.

"It was just a mindset," Arcidiacono said. "I wanted to be aggressive, for plays that were called for me and just read the defense . . . I think I was making the right play at the time. I found myself getting open looks. I have to credit my teammates for finding me. (Other teams) can't key on one person. We're not trying to have one guy go off."

That seems to be the theme. But if you're Wright, it's comforting to know that your rock is doing what a rock is supposed to do when the finish line is one loss away.

"He just has a way of knowing what the team needs at each individual time," Wright marveled. "I'm sure he thought, 'OK, we're in the Sweet 16. I'm a senior. I'm going to make sure we get going right away.' I think everyone on the team feels like, 'Thank God Arch is taking this over.'

"We never tell him to do it. Sometimes we have to say, 'Arch, you haven't taken a shot in seven minutes.' We never have to tell him the other way. It's what's made him so special."

Here's to at least one more opportunity to not call it a career.

Player Feature #2 March 24, 2016

Jenkins and ‘Nova Are Hottest of Shots (Kris Jenkins) Bob Ford, Philadelphia Inquirer

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - There was just about a minute remaining in a hot-shooting first half of Thursday's Sweet 16 game between Villanova and Miami, and there was still some doubt as to which team's offense was going to stay hotter when Kris Jenkins settled the question.

The Villanova junior had already made two three-pointers on three attempts in the half, but this next try - and for anyone else, that is what it was, a try - was from way beyond the three-point arc, way beyond the NBA three-point arc if there had been one, and way beyond what Jay Wright wants to see his players take.

The shot clock was almost gone, though, and Jenkins, his feet still within the large blue logo that surrounded midcourt, rose up with the same smooth stroke as usual. Miami, which had been down by 15 earlier in the half before cutting the margin to a single point, was desperately hoping for some momentum going into halftime. Jenkins took care of that.

"Strokes come and go, but when you're a shooter and have a shooter's mentality, every time you get the ball, you think it's going in," Jenkins said. "So, I think they're going in, but that comes from having confidence and being tough on defense. That's what fuels our offense."

The offense had plenty of fuel Thursday in dismantling Miami, the No. 3 seed in the South Regional, by a score of 92-69. The Hurricanes weren't all that bad offensively themselves. They shot 53.2 percent from the floor and made 10 of 17 three-pointers. But a few too many turnovers, not enough second shots, and absolutely no answer for the withering Villanova offense turned the game into a blowout.

Villanova advanced to the Elite Eight game on Saturday against No. 1 seed Kansas, with a trip to the Final Four on the line in that one. If the Wildcats play with anything close to the efficiency they have shown in three NCAA tournament wins so far, it wouldn't be a good idea to doubt them. The Wildcats are averaging just over 88 points per game and have shot 59.9 percent from the floor, including 53.2 percent on three-pointers. Those are numbers that simply don't happen during this tournament.

"They're just an incredible offensive team. We had no way to stop them," said Miami coach Jim Larranaga, who tried man-to-man, 2-3 zone, and 3-2 zone, but didn't get results with any of it. "We were playing at a high level [in the ACC], but nobody shot the three and stretched our defense like these guys did. They only took 15 threes. It seemed like they took 30 and made 25 of them. It seemed like every opportunity we had to get a stop . . . at the end of the first half it's a three-point game, they throw it out to Kris Jenkins and he buries a 35-footer like it's a layup."

As recently as a month ago, Jenkins was an important part of the rotation, but his contributions came in spurts. He was averaging 10.9 points a game before scoring 20 in a home win against Butler. Before that, he had scored 20 points just three times in the first 26 games. Starting with that game, and including the 10 games since, he has scored at least 20 six times and averaged 19.6 points during that span.

"About halfway through this season, he really found his stamina, found his stride," Wright said. "And he played defense and rebounded consistently, so we could keep him on the floor. He's a great scorer, and if you keep a great scorer on the floor for 35 minutes . . . he's going to get numbers. And he does have tremendous range. I don't like a couple of those that he took. He just believes he's making every shot and he can score from everywhere." The five three-pointers he made against Miami on six attempts came from all over the arc, including the one from well beyond it. His 21 points were tied for team high with Ryan Arcidiacono, who dropped in 4 of 7 three-pointers himself.

"I joke with the guards and let them know, 'Whenever you are in trouble, when in doubt, I'll bail you out,' " said Jenkins, referring to that deep three at the end of the first half. "Hopefully, we don't have to take too many more of those. I just wanted to give us a chance. The shot clock was running down, and I shot the ball just like I shoot any other shot. That one just happened to go in."

So have a lot of the other ones. All the Wildcats are playing at a very high level right now, something that will be tested again on Saturday. But the way Jenkins is shooting and the way the rest of his game allows Wright to leave him on the court, he gives them more than just a chance at a late basket here and there.

He gives them a chance to something much bigger.

Player Feature #3 March 18, 2016

‘Nova’s Big Man Delivers in Big Way (Daniel Ochefu) Bob Ford, Philadelphia Inquirer

NEW YORK - One year ago, the Villanova Wildcats began the climb that would lead them to the same doorstep that had just tripped them up again.

With an easy win Friday over UNC Asheville, they made it all the way back. Just one more win and the Wildcats will return to the Sweet 16 round in the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2009. Just one more win and the questions about their absence will become moot. Just one more trip to the doorstep and this time, surely, it will let them in.

Well, that's what Sunday will determine when the Wildcats play seventh-seeded Iowa for the right to advance to the South Regional in Louisville. That's what the wait has been about - just this one game - or another year of hearing about it.

"Yeah, it's really exciting for us. And it's probably what our biggest concern was," coach Jay Wright said. "All season, if we would have answered those questions and we lost this game [against UNC-Asheville], we're idiots. We can't do anything about [winning a second-round game] until we get there. Now, we've got to do it. That's the bottom line. If we don't do it, it's failure. But there's nothing wrong with failure in sports if you give your best effort."

If the job against Asheville was any indication, Villanova is playing at a high enough level to beat any team in the tournament, but matchups against No. 15 seeds are rarely an indication of anything except why the opponent was a No. 15 seed. Nevertheless, if the Wildcats were tight as they entered the NCAA tournament, it didn't show for long.

"I thought they looked awfully comfortable out there," UNC-Asheville coach Nick McDevitt said.

I bet he did. Losing by 30 points, 86-56, isn't any fun, even for a team that was fortunate just to make the tournament. But Villanova didn't hit full gear until the Wildcats were able to get center Daniel Ochefu to impose his will - and height - on the smaller Asheville team.

The Wildcats would have won this game anyway, but they will need Ochefu if they are to keep advancing. Their biggest concern entering the NCAA tournament was a sprained ankle that had limited the center in the Big East tournament. Wright wished for a Friday-Sunday set of opening games in order to give Ochefu an extra day of rest, and he got that wish. Against Asheville, he got even more. He got a center whose confidence should be very high for the games to come.

Ochefu scored 17 points on just nine shots, making seven of his attempts from the field and adding three free throws. He also had 10 rebounds, four assists, three blocks and a steal in 26 minutes. His presence on defense kept Asheville on the perimeter, where the Bulldogs shots just 36.8 percent from the field.

"That's our senior. That's our captain," junior Josh Hart said. "Seeing him out there 100 percent . . . he's ready to do it with everything he has and move on."

Ochefu's production came, admittedly, against an undersized team that struggled to guard him, and it also came only after some early hesitancy, but when it arrived, he was unstoppable. He scored 10 points in the paint during a six- minute stretch in the second half when Villanova expanded its lead to 18 points. "Their defensive plan was kind of tripping me up in the first half mentally, and I was making some wrong decisions," Ochefu said. "So, Coach got on me in the locker room, and I made the adjustments we needed - kicking the ball out to shooters like Ryan [Arcidiacono], Josh, guys cutting, and scoring when I couldn't."

Asheville mixed up its defense on Ochefu, doubling him right away sometimes, staying on the shooters other times. He found himself waiting to see rather than being decisive.

"In the second half, we told him, 'Just choose score first. Just go, and then if they come, you'll make the right decision.' And he did. He was great," Wright said.

Using good entry passes to get inside position, Ochefu made 5 of 6 shots in the second half, and Asheville was out of answers.

"He's a load," McDevitt said. "We just didn't have a whole lot for him down there. Early, I thought we kept him off balance. . . . but like all great players he recognized what we were doing and had a heck of a game."

Villanova will need more games like that, starting on Sunday against the Hawkeyes, who were second in the Big Ten in three-point field-goal defense. Iowa figures to concentrate on stopping the Wildcats' perimeter threats and take its chances with Ochefu. If you ask Asheville, that might be a dangerous strategy.

Either way, Sunday is a big game. It is a game that has been big for Villanova for a full year. It might also be a game for big men. On Friday, Daniel Ochefu said he was ready. He said it softly himself, but the stat sheet was loud enough.

Player Feature #4 March 15, 2016

NCAA Tournament: Mikal Bridges, From Redshirt to ‘Vital Part’ (Mikal Bridges) Reuben Frank, csnphilly.com

VILLANOVA, Pa. — Mikal Bridges did everything for Villanova last year. He practiced, he traveled, he watched video, he sat in meetings.

He did everything but play in actual basketball games.

“I don’t know how he stayed sane,” Josh Hart said. “I’m not sure I could have done it.”

Bridges not only stayed sane during his redshirt year but also learned enough to become a key reserve on a team that spent three weeks this winter ranked No. 1 in the country.

“Going through the whole year and not being able to play, it was something I got used to, but it was still tough not playing with your teammates,” Bridges said.

“I just tried to be as supportive as I could be, get them hyped up before games. Telling them little things I saw on the court from the bench. I couldn’t be out there, but I got to watch and I could pick up on some things they didn’t see.

“You always want to be out there with your brothers, but it was a great learning experience coming into this year. I’m a freshman this year, but I did everything besides play last year so I knew how everything went, how coach likes things, how we do our scouting, so I was a freshman with a real good advantage. But you always wish you were out there.”

Now Bridges, a native of nearby Lower Merion Township, is playing and he’s helping. He’s unique physically at 6- foot-7 with long arms, tremendous athleticism and an ability to defend that’s rare for freshmen. He can run the floor, get out on the break and finish in transition. He can slam with the best of them. And he's even hit 20 three-pointers this year.

Coming off the bench for the 29-5 Wildcats, Bridges is playing 20 minutes per game and averaging 6.3 points, 3.3 rebounds and 1.0 steal.

He’s one of only three freshmen in the Big East averaging at least six points, three rebounds and one steal per game and one of only three freshmen in all of Division I averaging 6.0 points, 3.0 rebounds and 1.0 steal in 20 minutes or less.

But the numbers aren’t really important. What Bridges does best — and what makes him a true Villanova Wildcat — is his ability to defend.

“You know, at this time of year, he becomes far more important because you play bigger teams,” Villanova head coach Jay Wright said. “He was great against Seton Hall defensively on (Big East Tournament MVP Isaiah) Whitehead. He gave us length out there. JayVaughn Pinkston used to do it for us. He could guard a guard. That’s what’s so amazing. He’s going to be a lot more valuable in the (NCAA) Tournament.”

Bridges also made two of three shots and all four of his free throws in the Big East Tournament title game, a two- point loss to Seton Hall. He was actually Villanova’s third-leading scorer Saturday with eight points and second- leading rebounder with six boards.

“And that was at the Garden and was as electric an atmosphere as we’ve ever seen,” Wright said. “So for him to do that in his first Big East Tournament, that was big for him.”

Bridges and the Wildcats open play in the NCAA Tournament on Friday at 12:40 p.m. against UNC Asheville at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn (see story).

“I love coming in and just playing hard,” Bridges said. “Whatever it takes to win. Anything. Do whatever I’m asked to do.

“It gives me more confidence knowing [Wright] has confidence in me and my teammates have confidence in me. They build my confidence up. I’m playing the way I am because of them. Because they always have my back.

“Hearing the seniors tell me, ‘You got this,’ or, ‘You can do this,’ hearing it from them, knowing they believe in me, that means a lot. Big-time.”

Interesting note about Bridges:

He’s made 51 of 71 two-point attempts this year, and his 71.8 field goal percentage from two-point range is sixth- best in Division I among players who’ve attempted 50 or more.

“I feel like I’ve improved a lot,” Bridges said. “I think the most important thing ... beginning of the year, I really played hard, really defended, but I was just out there wild.

“Now, I feel like I’m playing smarter. I’m defending and rebounding, paying more attention to detail, getting better and better concentration and understanding the scouting report better.”

Hart is a first-team all-conference pick and remained on the Naismith Award watch list as one of the top 35 players in the country when it was trimmed from 50 at midseason.

And Bridges’ numbers as a freshman are pretty similar to Hart’s numbers two years ago in his freshman year.

“I’m proud of him,” Hart said. “That’s my guy. Came in, I hated him. He would always — open gym — always fouling and all that. I hated him. That whole summer I hated him.

“But just to see how much he’s improving. Took the whole redshirt year and obviously had low points. He wanted to play, he wanted to help us. But he’s a vital part of this team. Gives us great energy off the bench, especially defensively.

“He’s one of the guys, he doesn’t care about offense. He says, ‘I’m going to guard Kris Dunn, I’m going to guard Isaiah Whitehead, I’m going to go guard these elite, dynamic guards, the best in the country,’ and he doesn’t back down.

“That’s the biggest thing he’s bringing us right now. And he’s only going to get better.”

Player Feature #5 March 15, 2016

Villanova’s Trio Brings Energy Off the Bench (Phil Booth, Mikal Bridges, Darryl Reynolds) Terry Toohey, Delaware County Daily Times

RADNOR >> As the first reserves off the bench, Villanova’s Phil Booth, Mikal Bridges, and Darryl Reynolds know it’s important to be mentally ready to enter the game at any time.

Their job is to bring energy and defense off the bench, which can be difficult when you’ve been sitting for five or six minutes once the game starts, so Bridges improvises.

“I do what everyone else does,” Bridges said. “Anytime we do something good we all get up an cheer. We’re energized already and that keeps us energized.”

Booth, Bridges and Reynolds watch and talk to stay focused on the task at hand. Talking, especially with senior walk-ons Patrick Farrell, Henry “Hank” Lowe and Kevin Rafferty, has been a large part of their success.

“Hank, Pat and Kev are on us as soon as the game starts,” Bridges said. “They’re always saying, ‘Be ready.’ And I never hear them say anything about offense. All they talk about is defense. It’s the same thing the coaches preach. If you play defense, the offense will come.”

And Booth, Bridges and Reynolds bring it to the tune of 15.9 points, 9.3 rebounds and 3.5 assists per game heading into Friday’s encounter with UNC-Asheville at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn in the first round of the NCAA Tournament (12:40, TRU TV).

Their biggest impact, though, can be felt on the defensive end. Bridges has been used at the head of Villanova’s press and Booth routinely draws the tougher defensive assignments. And when center Daniel Ochefu suffered a concussion and missed three games earlier in the season, Reynolds stepped right in and the Wildcats (29-5) never missed a beat. With Ochefu battling a right ankle sprain, Reynolds was called on again as a starter.

In last Saturday’s Big East championship game, Bridges (27 minutes) and Booth (17) saw more action than freshman guard Jalen Brunson (nine) for matchup reasons. Head coach Jay Wright felt that the 6-7 Bridges and the 6-3 Booth were better suited to deal with Seton Hall guard Isaiah Whitehead on the defensive end.

While Whitehead did score 26 points to earn Most Outstanding Player honors in leading the Pirates to the tournament title, Bridges and Booth did have their moments against the explosive 6-4 sophomore.

“At this time of year (Bridges) becomes far more important because you play a lot bigger teams,” Wright said. “He was great in the game against Seton Hall defensively on Whitehead, even though he had 26. He gave us length out there.

“JayVaughn Pinkston used to do that for us. Honestly, that was the guy. He could guard a guard. That was so amazing about him at that size. We don’t really have that guy this year, but Mikal’s that guy. I think he’s going to be a lot more valuable in the NCAA Tournament.”

Bridges also scored eight points, grabbed six rebounds and did not wilt until the bright lights on the Big East’s biggest stage. “He went 6-for-6 (from the free throw line) in Madison Square Garden and that was as an electric an atmosphere in that Garden,” Wright said. “That was awesome. We’ve seen some great ones when it was Syracuse and UConn with all the great players. That was two local teams’ crowds and he went 6-for-6 from the foul line. That was big for him.”

That’s what’s expected of them. Their job is to bring energy off the bench and maintain the level of play established by the starters. Sure, they would like to be in the starting lineup, but someone has to come off the bench and Booth, Bridges and Reynolds have gladly accepted their roles for the good of the team.

“This is a great team,” Booth said. “Everyone on this team can make plays so it doesn’t matter who’s in the game at what time as long as we come out on top.”

Player Feature #6 March 11, 2016

‘Nova’s Arcidiacono Gets Glory and Bruises (Ryan Arcidiacono) Bob Ford, Philadelphia Inquirer

NEW YORK - It was more than midway through the basketball game, and there was still plenty of doubt regarding the outcome when Villanova point guard Ryan Arcidiacono rose up in transition, all alone, and took a three-point shot that not every player has the courage, or license, to attempt.

"I would never think about it," teammate Josh Hart said. "But I don't care if he's shooting a three against four people. I know he's going to come back and defend and lay it on the line and jump over tables and dive on the floor. Of course, it's even better when you make them."

Arcidiacono had already done the other stuff in the Wildcats' quarterfinal game in the Big East tournament against Georgetown. He had skidded along the famous floor of Madison Square Garden and banged against the side table as he followed through on a shot and leaped it in pursuit of a loose ball, somehow landing without injury. The senior co-captain did all that in the first half, also made three baskets, had a couple of assists and a couple of rebounds, and it was still a one-point game.

In fact, it remained a one-point game until there were fewer than 10 minutes to go when Arcidiacono got out on a fastbreak and decided he was going to pull up and try one. That went pretty well, so he tried another, and then another. And by the time those shots went smoothly through the net, the Wildcats were up by 12 points with five minutes to play, and Arcidiacono hadn't just buried the three-pointers, he had done a pretty good job on Georgetown as well.

"I can't finish at the rim like some other guys, but Coach gives me the green light to pull up in transition, if that's the best thing for our team," Arcidiacono said. "I'm just being aggressive. I'm thinking, 'When else can I get a wide-open shot?' "

Arcidiacono can't shake free in the half-court game like some of the other guys. That's not what he does. So, he gets the freedom to take one now and then that might not always be the soundest shot in basketball. He pays the dues for that right.

"Everybody on our team knows if he misses a wide-open three in transition that he's going to do so many things to make up for it that it's not a big deal," coach Jay Wright said. "We love putting the fear into the opponent that he might do that. Then you have to guard him at the three-point line in transition, and that might open up a layup for somebody else. The other part is teams defend him so hard in the half-court that his best chance of getting open threes is in transition."

The Big East tournament was a great success for Villanova a year ago as the Wildcats won their first title since 1995, but Arcidiacono struggled with his shot, making a total of just four baskets in the team's three wins. Instead, he concentrated on the things that aren't necessarily catalogued in the box score. This tournament has started much differently, however, with Arcidiacono opening with 19 points against the Hoyas, including five three-pointers.

"We're comfortable with him making any shot," said Hart, who led all scorers with 25 points. "Him taking a wide- open three with nobody near him? I'm going to go for that 10 out of 10 times." Arcidiacono was open on the first two three-point attempts of the run that put the game away, but he was not only alone but without a teammate in sight on the third one. It was one-on-three, maybe one-on-four, when he hit the brakes at the three-point line.

"I didn't think we had numbers, but Coach always tells me to be aggressive. We do that in practice. If I'm out in transition, I'm pretty much the only one who pulls up," Arcidiacono said. "[On the last one], I was like, 'I just hit one. I should just pull it. Coach will get mad, but I'll deal with it.' "

It's a lot easier to deal with when the shots fall, and the game becomes a lot easier, too. On Thursday, in a game that didn't have to turn out the way it did, Ryan Arcidiacono paid back his coach and his teammates for allowing him to take the shots that no one else on the team dares to take.

You have to earn the right to pull up at that spot, however. You have to earn it on the floor, under the table, over the table, and everywhere else on the court. This guy does that, and as tournament time began for Villanova, he got the baskets to go with the bruises.

Player Feature #7 February 16, 2016

Nova’s Josh Hart Even Better This Season (Josh Hart) Joe Juliano, Philadelphia Inquirer

Josh Hart is a competitive guy. You don't get to be one of the best players in your conference - or in the entire nation - without having that fire that enhances your already superb skills on the basketball court.

But sometimes that fire can get out of control, and Hart came close to having that happen at times during his first two years at Villa. An example of that took place last year at Seton Hall, where he went down after a battle for a rebound and deliberately tripped the Pirates' Angel Delgado, resulting in a flagrant foul but no ejection.

That was a moment when Hart realized the importance of being able to channel his emotions to help, rather than hurt, himself and his team.

"That incident kind of showed me how my passion and how my competitiveness could really hurt me," Hart said. "That was the time where I knew I had to control my competitive nature, be able to control my passion, for my love of the game.

"Since then, maybe Coach would see me lose it a little bit in practice. But after that, I knew I have to have control of this. I can't have this year's younger guys looking up to me and seeing that. I can't have this program being looked at by other people as a program like that."

With the improved emotional control coupled with a versatile set of skills, Hart is a player of the year candidate in the Big East. The 6-foot-5 junior from the Washington, D.C., area does a little bit of everything for the nation's No. 1 team, averaging 15.2 points and 7.5 rebounds while shooting better than 51 percent from the floor and playing outstanding defense.

"I think Josh Hart is one of the underrated stars in the country, and one of the great college players," ESPN college basketball analyst Jay Bilas said. "He really does everything. He's dynamic, he's athletic, he plays at both ends of the floor, and he's a fabulous guard rebounder.

"To have a guy out there like that who defends at a really high level and can guard multiple positions, and who drives it so well and can make shots, and who can get you an extra possession and then gets you a defensive rebound to help start your break and convert from defense to offense, that's a big deal."

Villanova coach Jay Wright loves all of what Hart brings. But Hart's improvement in not losing focus when adversity strikes has pleased his coach.

"It more than surprised me, it really impressed me," Wright said. "He could lose his concentration with competitive rage. It was never with his teammates, always at himself - if he thought he got fouled, if we weren't playing well. He could take himself out of the game a little bit. But since day one in September, he's been mature, businesslike. Nothing bothers him."

That's part of the maturity that Hart has developed in his three years at Villanova. But it almost didn't happen there for Hart until he was noticed when Wright was recruiting another member of Team Takeover, Hart's Washington- based AAU team. Guard Stanford Robinson, who is at Rhode Island after playing his first two years at Indiana, was the player whom Wright was wooing.

"Stanford was a good shooter and scorer," Wright said. "But I was thinking, 'This guy, Josh Hart, gets every rebound, makes all the tough plays. Stanford Robinson is really good, but they're winning games because of Josh Hart.' "

After Robinson committed to Indiana, Wright landed Hart, who said he decided on Villanova because "they were always so confident in what they had to bring to the table, and that was something that just stood out to me."

After a good freshman year, Hart was ready to become a starter as a sophomore, but Wright went with Dylan Ennis and had Hart come off the bench as sixth man. Hart was crushed, feeling that he had let his parents down, but a phone conversation with his father helped.

"He was talking to me about it and said, 'Don't feel like you let us down. We're proud of you,' " Hart said. "Those were the words I really needed to hear. Those words just really told me, 'OK, it's time to move on and help the team however I can.' "

Hart went on to win the Big East's sixth man award and most outstanding player of the conference tournament. This season, he has posted seven double-doubles. When Daniel Ochefu missed three games with a concussion, Hart was asked to defend the opposing team's center on occasion.

"It doesn't really faze me because I'm going to do whatever I have to do to win," Hart said of playing several positions. "Whatever [Wright] tells me to do, whatever position I have to play for us to be successful, I'm going to do it to the best of my ability."

That versatility has been a huge benefit to the Wildcats, a big reason they have emerged as one of the nation's top teams.

"It's a nice little treat, to see all our hard work paying off," Hart said of being No. 1. "But we're not the No. 1 team in the country right now. We have the potential to be the No. 1 team at the end when it really matters. But we have to just keep getting better."

Player Feature #8 February 16, 2016

Ochefu Crucial to Villanova Success (Daniel Ochefu) Mike Sielski, Philadelphia Inquirer

In the game that he insists he has forgotten, Daniel Ochefu missed a short jump shot, then a layup, then another layup, all in the first 81/2 minutes, his off-night starting early and building into a foreboding sense that Villanova's season would soon end.

He took seven shots from the field that March night in Pittsburgh, during that 71-68 loss to North Carolina State that knocked the top-seeded Wildcats out of the NCAA tournament's second round. He made one. There were a lot of things that went wrong that night for 'Nova, and Ochefu's back-rimming those bunnies in the lane was among them. And even the program's No. 1 ranking in the national polls and a decisive victory Wednesday over Temple - in the game of the year in the Big Five - won't wash away the skepticism over the Wildcats' ability to make a deep run in March, to advance to at least the tournament's second weekend for the first time since 2009.

"It's something we have to live with," Ochefu, a 6-foot-11, 245-pound senior, said Monday night after Villanova had finished practice. "That year was great, but the loss is still something we have to deal with as we get back to that position.

"But it's gone with the wind now. When it's brought up, it's in my mind. But in my free time, I'm not thinking about that stuff."

Eleven months later, the Wildcats need Ochefu, more than ever, to play as if he really has cast any self doubt and bad memories from his mind. Lately, he has played that way. After sitting out three games because of a concussion, he made 15 of his 20 field-goal attempts in victories over DePaul and St. John's. Ochefu's 25-point, nine-rebound performance against the Red Storm persuaded Villanova coach Jay Wright that he didn't have to monitor Ochefu's minutes and stamina as closely as he might have thought in the aftermath of a head injury. "I'm good to go," Ochefu said.

That is no small matter, because Ochefu might be Villanova's most important player. For all the talent that the Wildcats have among their perimeter players - Josh Hart, Jalen Brunson, Ryan Arcidiacono, Kris Jenkins, Phil Booth - Ochefu leads the team in rebounds per game (8.2) and blocked shots per game (1.8), averages 10.5 points a game, and is shooting 61.5 percent from the field.

When he is effective, he allows Villanova to spread the floor, to create space for its shooters. He delivers defense, rebounding, and something else.

"Intelligence," Wright said. "Everybody looks at a big guy and says, 'How much do they dunk? How much do they block shots?' He's so intelligent defensively. I can pick games, like at Seton Hall. He made a steal with the game on the line to win the game for us. He also blocked a shot to win the game for us. Offensively, he started the second half against DePaul. We go inside to him. They help. He kicks it out to Jenkins for a three. His basketball IQ is amazing, and it's really what he does best for us."

In a perverse way, Ochefu's value was never more evident than in the N.C. State loss. Had he dropped in one or two of those early shots, it would have been a boost to the Wildcats both on the scoreboard and in their collective psyche. To be in the Consol Energy Center that night was to see the players tight in that game's first few minutes, as if they believed the basket's circumference had shrunk. More, those misses emboldened N.C. State to guard Villanova's guards more aggressively away from the rim, which contributed to the Wildcats' shooting 9 of 28 on three-pointers.

To their credit, Wright and his returning players have acknowledged the public perception and pressure that Villanova's early exits from the NCAA tournament have cultivated. Such is the burden of both Villanova's regular- season success under Wright and that hard recent postseason history: A victory Wednesday at the Liacouras Center would give the Wildcats their third consecutive Big Five championship. But many among the program's alumni and followers would regard the achievement as just another trinket collected ahead of the uncertainty of March.

Wright has dealt with the loss' lessons, he said, mostly from a program-wide perspective and has felt no need to single out Ochefu for counsel through its aftermath.

"There were some defensive errors we made, rebounding errors we made, that people didn't see that we knew," he said. "That's how we addressed it within the team. And I know [Ochefu]. I know he beats himself up over that stuff. I didn't have to say a word, and he came back strong, really strong."

It is what the Villanova Wildcats need from Daniel Ochefu, with a big game in the city on Wednesday, as March and all it could mean grow close.

Player Feature #9 February 12, 2016

Darryl Reynolds Emerging For No. 1 ‘Nova (Darryl Reynolds) Joe Juliano, Philadelphia Inquirer

Darryl Reynolds stood out for Villanova in the three games he started while senior center Daniel Ochefu was sidelined with a concussion, highlighted by a career game of 19 points and 10 rebounds in a road victory at Providence last Saturday.

But coach Jay Wright might have liked Reynolds' performance in the Wildcats' next game at DePaul - the program's first ever as the nation's No. 1 team - even more. Reynolds, a 6-foot-8 junior from Lower Merion High, kept up his level of play with Ochefu back in the lineup, contributing 14 points and six rebounds Tuesday in an 86-59 victory.

"It was great to see Darryl still be able to play at a high level," Wright said. "Darryl played 36 minutes at Providence, and I think he was fatigued for maybe 12 of those minutes. But he had to play and he did a great job. I thought we were functioning at a high level [against DePaul] with both of them playing."

Reynolds and Ochefu undoubtedly will see more time on the court together Saturday night when the Wildcats (21-3, 11-1 Big East) take on St. John's (7-18, 0-12) at the Wells Fargo Center.

Ochefu's first of three missed games came on Jan. 31 when Villanova met St. John's at Madison Square Garden. Reynolds stepped in and played a season-high 29 minutes, with four points and nine rebounds, in the Cats' 68-53 win.

He improved a little more in each game after that. In his last four games, Reynolds is averaging 10.3 points, 9.5 rebounds, 1.3 blocks and 1.7 steals while shooting 67 percent from the floor and 9 for 9 from the free-throw line.

"Obviously you get more confidence with more minutes and you start to understand situations a bit better," Reynolds said. "You see the game from a different perspective, and you feel the game. I think that's the biggest part.

"It's also getting the time. I played 36 minutes against Providence and it helped because I was out there almost the entire game. So when I go back and look at it, I can see what I could have done better, but I was also in it learning things on the fly."

When Reynolds played on the court with Ochefu at the same time against DePaul, he got two tip-in dunks. He credited the presence of Ochefu, who was the focus of being boxed out by DePaul.

"He had a couple of highlight putbacks there," Ochefu said. "I thought it was all him when he went to get the ball and slammed it. He was giving me credit, and I guess I'll take it."

But Reynolds is getting recognition as well. Wright said his development gives the Wildcats a strong eight-man rotation.

"If you're a good player and you get the minutes, you're going to produce eventually," Wright said. "He is a good player. So it was one of those perfect storms. When we lost Daniel, I thought this was going to be trouble. Now it turned out to be a blessing because it really got Darryl going."

Player Feature #10 January 26, 2016

Ryan Arcidiacono a Shining Star For Super ‘Nova (Ryan Arcidiacono) Dick Jerardi, Philadelphia Daily News

NEARING THE halfway point of the Big East season, Villanova is in front again, but not as dominant as last season when 27 of its 33 wins were by double digits. These Wildcats had been living dangerously before Providence got them Sunday at the Wells Fargo Center, ending long winning streaks, home and conference.

The Wildcats lost three starters from the team that went 33-3. The biggest difference from last season is the three- point shooting. That team shot 38.9 percent from the arc, 12th nationally. This team is at 31.9 percent, 272nd nationally.

One could argue that 'Nova, taking 45.6 percent of its shots from the arc (14th nationally), is shooting too many threes. But the style is necessitated by the players they have. This team's kryptonite may be a talented big man as PC's Ben Bentil showed with his 31 points and 13 rebounds. The bet is that the 'Cats can get beat at the rim in some games, but win by enough at the arc that it won't matter.

This time last year, everybody was talking about the Wildcats with a caveat, as in they lost in 2014 as a No. 2 seed. I thought the talk was silly. They were not playing well at the end of that season and caught a terrible matchup with Connecticut, the eventual national champion.

I thought last season's Villanova team was playing better at the end of the season than any of the really good city teams I have watched over the last 30 years. I could not imagine them losing early in the NCAA.

Then, I watched a team I did not recognize against North Carolina State on that forgettable Saturday night in Pittsburgh. After it played out, a bunch of us stood in the hall outside the locker room with Jay Wright, the coach trying to explain the unexplainable, saying he and his team had to own the loss, knowing that the questions I thought were silly would now only intensify over the next 12 months.

The joy really should be in the journey, especially for seniors Ryan Arcidiacono and Daniel Ochefu. But they know, the coach knows, everybody knows, this group, which is an insane 79-11 since the start of the 2013-14 season, is going to be judged by how it performs in the 2016 NCAA.

Meanwhile, enjoy the team. Josh Hart is in play for Big East and Big 5 player of the year. And there is Ryan Arch, one of my all time favorite Big 5 players.

The day after this season's Villanova-Saint Joseph's game, I got an unsolicited e-mail from Hawks assistant Dave Duda.

"Just wanted to pass along a thought on Ryan Arch in preparing over the years," Duda wrote. "I know he gets his awards, but I truly believe he is underappreciated. I so admire the way he plays, leads and controls games."

Arch is a coach's player. They know what he means.

"I really believe that he should be mentioned among the storied guards in the history of the Big 5," Duda wrote. "You can't measure his intangibles statistically, but they are so mentally tough and it starts with him. He welcomes and embraces the big moment. Winning is the greatest statistic and he does it like no other. "I know they need to do it come tourney time, but I don't think it will ever diminish the winning percentage. Having played against a number of 'Nova teams in my time, many were talented, none this tough to beat and I think it centers around him."

The best measure of Ryan Arch's impact is that 79-11 and those eight points Sunday at the end of regulation when one miss meant the game was over. I just enjoy watching how under control and in the moment he is. We are in the homestretch of Arch's career and this 'Nova season. Everybody should just savor the moments and when that second NCAA game finally arrives, this group will get its chance to change the narrative.

Player Feature #11 November 30, 2015

How Jalen Brunson Was Shaped By His Father’s Lessons and His Scandal (Jalen Brunson) Lee Jenkins, Sports Illustrated The white BMW 750 sedan pulled out of the Wachovia Center and headed toward the Walt Whitman Bridge, leaving the lights of downtown Philadelphia behind. It was Oct. 25, 2006, and the 76ers had just beaten the New Jersey Nets in their last exhibition game. After the final horn 10-year-old Jalen Brunson retreated to the Philly locker room while his father, reserve point guard Rick Brunson, joined Sixers general manager Billy King in a back office. Later Jalen thought it strange when his dad left the arena without saying goodbye to anybody, trudging silently to the car, but the boy wasn’t concerned. The regular season started in a week, and for the first time all of the Brunsons would spend it in one city. On the drive home to Cherry Hill, N.J., Jalen talked excitedly about opening night. Finally Rick interrupted the dream.

“Son,” he said, “I’m not going to play for the Sixers. I got cut again.”

It was the eighth time. Or the ninth. Rick had lost track. He had played for the Magic, Knicks, Blazers, Heat, Celtics, Bulls, Raptors, Clippers, SuperSonics, Rockets, Blazers again, Knicks again, Bulls again, Clippers again. He had spent nine seasons in the NBA, all on one-year make-good contracts, counting the days until Jan. 10, when those tenuous deals became guaranteed.

Jalen was disappointed, but he tried to remain upbeat. His father would catch on somewhere else. He always did.

“No,” Rick said. “This is it. I’m done.”

The 76ers had been the first team to cut him, in favor of Elmer Bennett before the 1995–96 season, and they’d be the last. At least they didn’t ask his wife to deliver the news, as the Knicks once did when it was she who picked up the phone in their White Plains, N.Y., hotel room. Rick glanced at his son in the passenger’s seat. The boy looked like he was about to cry.

Jalen used to sit courtside in his stroller while Rick worked out. He rode his bike while Rick ran on a nearby track. He wore suits to games, like his dad, even when the games were on plastic hoops in his grandparents’ kitchen. He cut the sleeves off his T-shirts, because that’s what the pros did, and he carried toys in a roller bag, as if he were forever en route to a charter. He shot imaginary jumpers at Madison Square Garden, impersonating Allan Houston’s jab step. When he rocked a Michael Jordan jersey at a Wizards game, Jordan asked, “Would you like me to sign that?”

“No,” Jalen replied, backing away. “You’ll mess it up.”

As Jalen grew older, friends offered primo tickets, but he turned them down, explaining that he didn’t like sitting in the stands. He preferred to be with the towel boys. Basketball was not entertainment. It was work.

Rick gave Jalen after-school chores: Sink 100 layups righthanded, 100 lefthanded, dribble two balls around the block, then do 30 minutes of box jumps. Rick lowered the rim on the backyard basket to eight feet and banned Jalen from attempting three-pointers, for fear he’d develop poor mechanics. But the kid still found his shots. Once, Rick returned to Cherry Hill during All-Star Weekend and watched Jalen chuck his way through a pickup game. Horrified, Rick walked onto the floor and chewed out his son in the huddle.

“None of these people came here to watch you play by yourself,” he hissed. “Pass the ball or get out of the gym.”

Jalen sobbed. Parents muttered: What a nut. Rick could be brutal, but he wasn’t going to raise a gunner. Jalen learned to dish.

Retired athletes often take years to discover a second act. Rick found his that night in 2006 before he crossed the Delaware River into South Jersey. “I don’t want you to live how I lived,” he told Jalen, who blinked back tears. “If you really want to be a ballplayer, listen to what I tell you, and you will take a different route.”

Villanova has finished practice on a Monday evening in mid-October, and the only people still on the court at the Davis Center are Jalen Brunson and Jay Wright. Jalen, the most vaunted freshman point guard in college basketball, and Wright, the Wildcats’ decorated head coach, are discussing whether to split the defense in transition or skip the ball to the weak side. Jalen, 19, became the country’s top point guard recruit and the latest Chicagoland phenom largely because of his ability to attack the rim. Wright, who has spent 14 years deconstructing Big East defenses, wants him to drive and kick. Jalen nods.

He is a precocious 6'2", 199-pound playmaker who grew up with a Steve Nash Fathead on his wall, studied YouTube clips of Steph Curry and Chris Paul, and interviewed Kyle Lowry and Deron Williams while deciding between Villanova and Illinois, their respective alma maters. Unlike many modern floor generals, Brunson is not a one-man fast break. He manipulates screens, exploits angles and probes gaps, all with the dead-eyed expression of an underground fighter.

“It’s a stoic, nasty look,” Wright says. “He never, ever smiles. He plays with a scowl that’s inspiring to teammates but puts fear in opponents and hatred in fans.”

Wright suggests that Jalen’s unyielding approach was inherited, passed down from an NBA father who got cut eight times—or was it nine? Wright remembers coaching at Hofstra in 1998 and staying up late one night to watch the Blazers play the Lakers. Rick scored 19 points for Portland. Early the next morning, when Wright ambled into the Hofstra gym, Rick was there shooting. Wright did a double take. Rick, who lived on Long Island then, had hopped the red-eye from LAX for the All-Star break and driven straight to campus. Jalen describes the sight of his dad after those workouts, cutoffs drenched with the desperation of a man churning for one more contract. Jalen is indeed a product of the many trials his father endured. But he is also a product of the many trials his father put him through.

Rick played at Temple, for coach John Chaney, who rode him so mercilessly that Rick decided he would transfer to Boston College after his freshman season.

“The man is crazy,” he told his mother, Nancy Linton. Rick grew up in the projects of Syracuse, N.Y., sharing a two-bedroom apartment with his mom and four siblings. His father didn’t try to be in his life until Rick was selected to the McDonald’s All-American game. “So what if Coach Chaney screams?” Nancy said. “If you can’t make it with him, you’re not going to make it in life.”

Rick played three more years for Chaney and fell in love with an Owls volleyball star named Sandra Davis. Sandra was polished and sophisticated—everything Rick was not. When she delivered the couple’s only son, in 1996, Rick was in Australia, running the point for the Adelaide 36ers. I’m going to raise this child, he told himself, the way Coach Chaney raised me.

Shortly after Rick retired as a player, the family moved from Cherry Hill to Charlottesville, Va. There Rick embarked on what he believes are the two best jobs he’s ever had: managing basketball operations at the University of Virginia and building a point guard who would never, ever get cut. John Paul Jones Arena was brand new, but Rick rarely let Jalen play there. He trained the boy on an outdoor court at Charlottesville High, taping Jalen’s right thumb to his palm so it wouldn’t interfere with his lefty stroke. He fitted Jalen for a weighted vest to wear while running hills in 100º heat, and he flooded his ears with trash talk:

“You don’t want to be a basketball player! You don’t understand what it takes! You can’t spend the night at your friend’s house! You have to sacrifice everything!”

Jalen practiced with the Virginia women’s team and enrolled in youth leagues. When he shied away from a physical defender, Rick left the gym and told him to hitch a ride home with his mother.

“He yelled at me, barked at me,” Jalen says. “I didn’t realize what he was doing. I hated him. I wouldn’t talk to him.”

Jalen sat glumly in his bedroom at night until Sandra came in and consoled him. Tired of being the buffer between father and son, Sandra warned Rick that his methods were too extreme and threatened to stop attending their sessions, video camera in tow. She didn’t need her kid playing basketball, anyway. She envisioned another life on waivers.

If he can take it from me, Rick reasoned, he’ll be able to take it from anybody. The boy would either break or crystallize. Privately Rick did worry about his relationship with Jalen and sought counsel from Bob Hurley, the famed coach of St. Anthony High in Jersey City, who raised two exceptional college point guards: Bobby (Duke) and Danny (Seton Hall).

“He’ll eventually figure out when you’re being his father,” Hurley assured Rick, “and when you’re being his coach.”

In 2010, Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau hired Rick as an assistant, and the Brunsons moved to the northern suburbs of Chicago, a city that treats high school basketball like a pro sport. When Rick had a free hour after practice, he called Sandra to bring Jalen to the Berto Center to train alongside Derrick Rose and Joakim Noah. But most of the Brunsons’ work took place at Life Time Athletic, an upscale gym in Vernon Hills, Ill., three miles from their home in Lincolnshire.

The modern point guard must be able to run the pick-and-roll, so Rick arranged folding chairs as screeners, and Jalen mastered drills attacking the trap, the hedge, the show. The modern point guard must also be able to shoot from outside, so Rick introduced a drill called 5-4-3-2-1, in which Jalen had to sink five straight threes from five spots on the arc, then four, then three and so on.

If Jalen grew frustrated, Rick bailed, dispensing parting shots such as, “You don’t want to be the best player in the country! You don’t want to be great!” Jalen would finish the drill by himself and walk home. He enrolled at Lincolnshire’s Stevenson High, and during the summer before his freshman year coach Pat Ambrose tossed him a set of keys. “I can’t drive,” Jalen said, missing the symbolism.

“I know,” Ambrose responded, “but you’re driving this car.”

Jalen had a habit of looking to Ambrose after running plays. “How do you want me to do that?” Jalen asked.

“Well,” Ambrose replied, “just exactly how you did it.”

The two men who were overseeing Jalen’s career took opposite tacks. As a freshman, Jalen staggered from the court at Stevenson after a lackluster game and Rick told him, “Don’t even take off the uniform.” They played one-on-one for the next 90 minutes.

“I promised Jalen I would be the balance,” Ambrose says. “I’d be the steady one.” In 2012, Rick landed another assistant’s job, in Charlotte, but Sandra, Jalen and daughter Erica stayed in Lincolnshire. Rick watched Jalen’s games on The Cube, a website that streams high school sports, and called his son afterward. You’re not playing hard. You’re not covering anybody. He often left Charlotte right after practice, flew to Chicago for a game, then flew back the next morning. On one of those jaunts he saw Stevenson lose after an opponent nailed a three-pointer to go ahead by one with 10 seconds left. Jalen threw up his arms in exasperation. “You had 10 seconds!” Rick moaned later. “But the moment you did that, it was over!”

When Rick returned to Charlotte he made Jalen a DVD of Kobe Bryant’s game-winners, which often followed defensive slipups. He wanted Jalen to see how Kobe reacted when the Lakers allowed a bucket, how he stuck out his palm to calm his teammates. The DVD included a message from Rick: You can never hit one of these because you’re afraid to fail!

During a tournament that Christmas, Jalen drained a game-winner, then spotted his mom in the stands and pressed an imaginary phone to his cheek. “Call Dad!” he mouthed.

The Bobcats’ staff was fired after one season, and when Rick moved back to Lincolnshire, his dynamic with Jalen was different. They still scrapped, but when Rick hollered at him to initiate action in the first quarter, Jalen stuck out his palm. “I want my teammates to get confidence,” he explained. “Then I’ll take over.” With Rick at home full-time, they talked about the Eagles and the Bears, music and girls—finally, topics other than hoops. Jalen discovered Bob Hurley’s line separating father and coach. “There were so many days we were [nose to nose],” Jalen recalls. “I’d roll my eyes, give him attitude. He constantly told me, ‘If you don’t want this, let me know, and I’ll stop.’ But I never said stop. I always wanted it.” Assigned an essay in school about his role model, he picked his dad.

When Jalen was a junior, Rick yanked him under the bleachers after a game and accused him of hunting shots, as if he were back at the Burlington County YMCA. “You mother------!” Rick erupted. “I see you chasing points. You do not f------chase points!” Michigan State coach Tom Izzo, on the recruiting trail, heard every word.

“You’re right,” Jalen said. “It was my fault.” He knew better than to curse back at his father, who parented according to a Chaney credo: Do as I say, not as I do.

Even Rick’s most vicious tongue-lashings were tinged with high praise, predictions that Jalen’s critics would “watch him in the McDonald’s game” and “beg for money in 10 years.” By June 2014, Rick looked prophetic. Jalen led the U.S. team to the gold medal in a FIBA Americas under-18 tournament in Colorado Springs; the average margin of victory was 55 points. Jalen was about to enter his senior season as a five-star recruit, the reigning Gatorade Player of the Year in Illinois and the heir to the Chicago schoolboy throne. The city that reared Rose, Anthony Davis, Jabari Parker and Jahlil Okafor was priming its next hardwood prodigy. Jalen could exhale. He had met every challenge his father put in front of him. Then the Vernon Hills police knocked on the door.

After the championship game in Colorado Springs, Rick and Sandra drove through the night. When they arrived home the following afternoon, Rick went upstairs and took a nap. He was awakened by his wife’s cries. Police arrested Rick on charges of attempting to sexually assault a female masseuse at Life Time Athletic.

According to an eight-count indictment, Rick allegedly grabbed the masseuse and tried to force her to commit a sex act. Rick knew the woman. Two months earlier, when a Life Time manager informed him that detectives came to the gym asking questions about Rick, he sat down with Sandra, Jalen and Erica, who was then 13. Rick admitted to having had a sexual relationship with the masseuse, which began three years earlier. “I made a huge mistake,” Rick says. “I committed a moral sin. I let my wife down. I let my kids down. But I never did anything criminal.”

After being arraigned, Rick was released on bail. The story mushroomed in Chicago, less because of Rick’s celebrity than because of Jalen’s. “Every time you turned on the TV there was something else,” Sandra says. “It was earth-rattling. For me it wasn’t, This is an affair. It was, This is the fight of my life with my family.” Sandra, a paralegal, stayed in their house for most of the first month when she was not working. When she did go out, it seemed as if somebody asked about “the situation.” She came to hate the word. She asked Jalen if he wanted to move back East for his senior year and escape the scrutiny. “I’m not going anywhere,” he said.

In Stevenson’s first road game of the season, at Lyons Township, Jalen was serenaded with catcalls about masseuses. Jalen scored 30 points in a 71–39 blowout. Afterward, when Lyons Township fans swarmed him for autographs, he snapped, “Get away from me!”

Rick charged at his son. “You can’t ever react!” he shouted. “I made the mistake! You can’t make another one!”

The rest of the season Jalen was accompanied to road games by school-appointed security guards, but they could not muffle the crude chants and jeers. When Lake Forest High took the unusual measure of threatening to suspend any student who heckled Jalen, Rick was so moved that he personally thanked the athletic director. “I could have lost it every game, gotten a technical every game,” Jalen says, “but I got to the point where I was almost waiting to hear something, daring them to say it.” Stevenson coaches charted Jalen’s stats before and after the taunts. They noticed that his performance spiked.

Jalen mined the Twitter feeds of upcoming opponents to see who was cracking jokes about his father. In private moments he acknowledged that the jabs bothered him, but on the floor he betrayed no emotion. His face remained locked in that perpetual snarl. Rick was right in at least one regard: He had prepared Jalen to absorb anything from anybody.

“I’ve never seen a kid who can mentally break down adults the way he does,” Wright marvels. “He has this killer mentality that just ... never ... stops.”

Jalen’s preferred colleges were Villanova and Illinois, but Temple had talked to Rick about an assistant coaching job. After the arrest Temple backed away from Rick, freeing Jalen to make the choice he had wanted all along. No program develops point guards more meticulously than Villanova, and no coach handles personal issues more delicately than Wright. “Things got so bad, so deep, it really had nothing to do with whether we got Jalen,” Wright says. “It was, How can we be there for this family?” Wright would call the house and talk more about the case than about the season.

Jalen became a McDonald’s All-American, Mr. Basketball in Illinois, a state champion. He had the senior send-off every player wants—and no player wants. He saw his dad dress up for hearings and said, “I know you’re going to court today,” but Rick didn’t respond, for fear he’d be more of a burden than he already was.

Rick and the masseuse both testified to a consensual but sporadic sexual relationship. According to the masseuse’s testimony, it ended in the summer of 2013. According to Rick’s testimony, it was still ongoing on April 2, 2014. That day Rick got a massage at Life Time, and the masseuse testified that he tried to force her to engage in sexual activity. Rick testified to activity that was consensual. He also claimed that the masseuse, who admitted having filed for bankruptcy, had been pressuring him for money (which she denied). “I was so stupid,” Rick says, “because I put myself in that position.” He had to beg for his family’s faith after betraying it.

“I trusted him,” Jalen says, “because everything he ever told me in my life always came true.” On May 29, Rick was acquitted of all charges. The bench trial lasted one day. After the verdict Rick drove to Stevenson and found Jalen. “You don’t have to worry about this anymore,” he said. Rick kept his family together, and they are starting over back in Voorhees Township, next to Cherry Hill. But Rick still wants to coach, preferably in college, and that will be more difficult. Thibodeau raves about Rick’s work with the Bulls, but Google searches do him no favor. “People look at you like, What really happened?” Rick says. “What did he do? Did he have a good lawyer? He definitely looks crazy.” He recently inquired about a job as video coordinator at Temple, where he is a member of the school’s Hall of Fame, and was rejected. Rick, 43, still coaches the one player he knows best. After a Villanova scrimmage in October he sends Jalen a text message that fills two screens: You gotta get nastier on the court.... You give up too many rebounds.... If you don’t change your attitude toward defense and what type of player you are right NOW it will be a long season for you. He harps on Jalen to hang a list of athletic and academic goals on his dorm-room wall, a childhood tradition. “Does your roommate laugh?” Rick asks. “He’ll beg for money in 10 years.” Rick fumes when he calls Jalen’s cell and hears female voices in the background. “Remember,” he says, “one girl!” Jalen explains that the Wildcats are developing a Midnight Madness sketch with the dance team.

Rick says he does not want to intrude, but occasionally he is compelled to drive the 30 miles to Villanova. After practice he waits for Jalen on the sideline and asks if he wants to work out later. It is already 6 p.m. Yes, Jalen says, he will be back in the gym tonight. “Sometimes he asks me that on an off-day, and I’m like, O.K.,” Jalen says with a sigh. “There are times I feel like I need a new voice. But I always go back to that voice, because nobody cares as much as he cares. Nobody pushes me as much as he pushes. Even if it’s hard, I know it’s the best thing for me.”

He is a child of the NBA who once joined Jay Z onstage at a concert and wore Christmas sneakers gifted by Kobe. But there is nothing pampered about Jalen Brunson, and whatever the student sections have in store for him at Butler or Georgetown or Marquette, he’s probably heard much worse. Villanova’s first on-campus game outside of Philadelphia will be Dec. 19, at Virginia, appropriate because this meandering father-son journey began on the blacktop just down the road, with a weighted vest and a taped hand.

Player Feature #12 November 14, 2015

Gifted Freshman Jalen Brunson Lifts Villanova’s Hopes (Jalen Brunson) Mike Jensen, Philadelphia Inquirer

Jay Wright knew what he was getting, a McDonald's all-American point guard with commensurate skills and a highest-level basketball IQ. This summer, in a series of televised basketball games from the island of Crete, the expectations for Jalen Brunson ratcheted higher.

"When I saw that, I said, 'Oh boy, there's a lot more coming with this now,' " Wright said recently. "Because that lit up the NBA guys' eyes. . . . I said, You know what, he's going to come in as one of these guys they talk about - one and done. He's just going to have to deal with it."

The tournament in Crete wasn't some summer jamboree. It was high stakes, the FIBA under-19 world championship. Brunson is the reason - the reason - a bunch of American teenagers got on the plane with gold medals. Maybe the U.S. team could have survived a semifinal without the 30 points Brunson put up against Greece in front of a rabid Greek crowd. (Think Cameron Crazies with fireworks.) But there just isn't a reasonable chance the Americans would have beaten Croatia in overtime in the final without Brunson taking complete control.

The United States had plenty of young talent, including Harry Giles, a tall phenom headed for Duke next year. But the young guys looked young in that final, and Brunson took care of them all. He hit big shots in easy rhythm, dished out seven assists, committed no turnovers. Whenever the U.S. team needed a play, Brunson made one.

U.S. coach Sean Miller of Arizona told Sports Illustrated after the final, "That kid is a Final Four point guard."

As for dealing with the repercussions of that success, Wright said, "He already has. We've got NBA scouts at every practice. I just knew that was going to be another one of his challenges."

Not a bad one, having scouts deciding whether you're ready to join their league. "For young kids, that's pressure," Wright said of the NBA attention, adding, "That's what they live for, and rightfully so."

I asked Brunson what it was like to deal with the pressure of an international final. "I didn't really feel pressure," he said. "I knew there was a lot at stake. I just had to play my game. I knew what I was going to do."

But as a transition from high school to college, Brunson said, "It helped me because you're playing against pros over there. In Europe, a lot of people don't go to college necessarily and are already in their league for two or three years, playing professionals. It's a really different type of game, but I really learned from that experience."

It's a key point. Croatia's top guard Nik Slavica left his hometown when he was 10 years old to move to a top Croatian club's youth team. His competition at practice now includes not just Euro pros but former U.S. college stars such as Devon Saddler of Delaware.

Let's pause to state the obvious. Villanova has quite the assortment of interesting parts. Josh Hart was named outstanding player of the Big East tournament. Hart would be the centerpiece of a lot of top-25 teams. Ryan Arcidiacono, co-Big East player of the year last season, and Phil Booth would each be the sole point guard on most top-25 teams. Daniel Ochefu will be closely scrutinized by NBA scouts. Championship teams would kill to have a player like Kris Jenkins. Maybe adding Brunson to this mix at least makes up for the loss of Darrun Hilliard, who showed last season why he's now with the Detroit Pistons. To think a freshman could offset all that Hilliard brought usually would be crazy. It still is asking a lot.

Wright correctly recites the mantra that, starting with tonight's opener against Fairleigh Dickinson, Villanova must get better defensively, to replace the guys who are gone at that end of the floor, in order to achieve big things. But those big things are achievable, and Brunson obviously is a big reason why.

An interesting facet is that Brunson doesn't have to do right away what he did in the summer - take care of a bunch of talents still learning their way. This is kind of the opposite situation. Brunson gets to fit into an older group, be the young guy, the phenom. You'll just see right away, he plays like an old guy. He can't hide that, and Villanova fans shouldn't want him to.

Game Recap #1 March 27, 2016

All Systems Go: Villanova Books Trip to Houston Terry Toohey, Delaware County Daily Times

LOUISVILLE, Ky >> Go ahead and book the travel arrangements to Houston.

Villanova is headed to the Final Four.

The Wildcats continued their magical run through the NCAA Tournament with a 64-59 victory over top-seeded and top-ranked Kansas in the South Regional final Saturday night at the KFC Yum! Center.

Mikal Bridges stripped Devonte’ Graham in the closing seconds and four players scored in double figures to send Villanova to the Final Four for the fifth time in program history and the first since 2009. The Wildcats (33-5) also reached the Final Four in 1939, 1971 and 1985 — when Villanova won its only national championship with a 66-64 victory over heavily favored Georgetown at Rupp Arena in Lexington, which is about a 70-minute ride from Louisville.

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Ryan Arcidiacono, Josh Hart and Kris Jenkins scored 13 points each and Daniel Ochefu added 10 for Villanova.

“This hasn’t hit me yet,” Hart said. “It’s going to take a while for it to sink in. This is crazy.”

Graham paced Kansas (33-5) with 17 points. Frank Mason III and Wayne Selden Jr. added 16 points each for the Jayhawks.

But it was a steal by Bridges that kept the Wildcats undefeated in NCAA Tournament games in the Commonwealth of Kentucky (4-0) and earned Jay Wright membership in an exclusive club. He is just the third coach from a Big 5 school to get to the Final Four twice. Ken Loeffler did it in back-to-back years at La Salle. The Explorers won the national title in 1953-54 and finished second in 1954-55. Harry Litwack took Temple to Final Fours in 1955-56 and again in 1957-58. The Owls lost in the national semifinals, but won the third-place game both times.

Yes, they had third-place games back then, but that consolation game, like Villanova’s inability to get out of the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament, is ancient history. The Wildcats ended that streak by beating Asheville and Iowa by a combined 49 points, and continued their torrid play with a 92-69 whipping of Miami in the regional semifinals Thursday night.

In those three games, it was the offense that carried the day as the Wildcats shot a blistering 59 percent overall and 53 percent from 3-point range to win its first three games by an average of 24 points.

This time around, Villanova’s defense was the difference and earned the Wildcats a rematch with Oklahoma next Saturday in the national semifinals. The second-seeded Sooners ripped top-seeded Oregon, 80-68, to win the West Regional final in Anaheim. Oklahoma roughed up Villanova, 78-55, to win the Pearl Harbor Invitational Dec. 7, 2015 in Hawaii.

“This is unbelievable,” Jenkins said as he hugged trainer Jeff Pierce. “And we’re not done yet.” Villanova never let the Jayhawks get comfortable on offense, especially leading scorer Perry Ellis. The 6-8 senior forward came into the game averaging 23 points a game in the tournament and had just three field goal attempts in the first 25 minutes. All three bounced harmlessly off the rim.

Ellis did not get his first field goal until there was 13:32 left in the game and finished with just four points. And even though his first bucket did give Kansas its first lead since the midway point of the first half, and the Wildcats struggled against the Kansas defense, Villanova had enough to retake the lead and then hold off the Jayhawks.

With Jenkins on the bench with four fouls, Hart and Arcidiacono fueled a 12-3 run that enabled the Wildcats to retake the lead, 50-45. Back-to-back 3-pointers by Arcidiacono and Hart gave Villanova that five-point cushion.

Selden did his best to keep the Jayhawks in it with six straight points, but it wasn’t enough for Kansas to overtake Villanova.

Bridges and Arcidiacono forced Graham to cough it up and foul out of the game at the same time when he was whistled for his fifth personal while going for the loose ball with 34.1 seconds to play. The Jayhawks were forced to foul and that was it.

Arcidiacono hit both ends of a one-and-one with 33.1 seconds left. After Mason buried a 3-pointer, Arcidiacono nailed two more foul shots 11 seconds later. After Mason threw in a reverse layup to make it a one-point game again, Jenkins nailed two free throws to extend the lead to 62-59.

And then Bridges came up with the steal of the year, Brunson swished two and Villanova was headed to the Final Four.

Game Recap #2 December 8, 2015

Villanova Falls to No. 7 Oklahoma in Hawaii Jason Kaneshiro, Philadelphia Inquirer

HONOLULU - Despite sweltering conditions inside of Pearl Harbor's Bloch Arena, Villanova had trouble heating up in its visit to Hawaii.

Oklahoma had no such issues and the seventh-ranked Sooners hit 14 three-pointers on 26 attempts in a 78-55 win over the Wildcats on Monday in the first game of the Pearl Harbor Invitational doubleheader at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam.

Oklahoma guard Isaiah Cousins went 4 for 4 from behind the arc and led five Sooners in double figures with a game-high 19 points, 6 rebounds and 10 assists. Guard Buddy Hield hit four three-pointers in the first half in an 18- point performance, forward Ryan Spangler finished with 11 points and 10 rebounds and the Sooners (6-0) never trailed while sending Villanova (7-1) to its first loss this season.

"It was a great test, we knew we'd be playing an outstanding team," Villanova coach Jay Wright said. "We knew if they're clicking on all cylinders and we don't get after them and take them out of what they do, this could happen.

"It's not the kind of team you want to get behind on. We have not started well in any game this season and when you do it against a team like that and you gotta come from behind against a team like that, you're going to be in trouble and that's what happened."

While Oklahoma shot 46 percent from the field, Villanova went 8-for-30 in the first half and finished at 32 percent.

Phil Booth, Josh Hart and Ryan Arcidiacono all had 10 points for the Wildcats, who finished 4-for-32 from three- point range.

"We got into the paint, we got to the rim, we just couldn't buy a three," Arcidiacono said.

After ceremonies commemorating the 74th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor Monday morning, the event opened with a top-10 matchup featuring Villanova, No. 9 in the Associated Press poll and No. 6 in the USA Today coaches poll against Oklahoma, No. 7 in AP and No. 8 in the coaches poll.

Hield set the tone for the Sooners by hitting four three-pointers in the first 6 minutes, 10 seconds and Cousins drained two in Oklahoma's 18-8 opening surge.

"They're a really good team, a very experienced team with a lot of juniors and seniors," Arcidiacono said. "We're a young team but we just can't start games like that, put ourselves in a hole against teams like that."

When Oklahoma finally cooled, Villanova pieced together a 14-2 run, holding the Sooners to one field goal in a span of 3:50 and tying the game on two Hart free throws with 2:55 left in the first half.

The Wildcats went 8-for-11 from the free-throw line while Oklahoma attempted just two, making both, and the Sooners led 32-26 at halftime.

The second half started much like the first with Oklahoma stretching the lead with three more three-pointers. The Sooners opened up a 45-32 lead when Spangler hit a three from the top as the shot-clock buzzer sounded.

Oklahoma continued to pull away while holding Villanova a season-low point total. "We just didn't play the defense we usually play and the way Villanova expects to play," Arcidiacono said. "That's something we'll have to get better with, but it's definitely a great learning experience and a great overall trip."