Wright Says Villanova Still 'Evolving'
Mike DeCourcy - SportingNews.com
Mar 04, 2010
CINCINNATI -- It took Villanova only 21 games to ring up a 20-win season this winter. That's how fast the Wildcats were moving. They played basketball like they were in a pie-eating contest, chewing through possessions voraciously and efficiently, if not always precisely.
Theirs was a game in which size and power were of lesser importance than speed and quickness. They started a couple of 6-5 guys at forward and a couple of little guards and dared opponents to keep up.
Of course, that was before the Eastern seaboard turned into February tundra and Villanova's Big East schedule took an even nastier turn. By the time the Wildcats arrived in the Queen City -- where they subdued Cincinnati, 77-73 -- they'd played four road games in less than a month against teams with a combined current record of 92-24.
"We can't complain because we got a lot of hype," coach Jay Wright said. "We were No. 2, No. 3. But we all knew."
Wright and his coaches understood it would be hard for the Wildcats to remain undersized in the plus-sized Big East. He tried to stick with what had worked during the season's first three months, but a five-point loss at Pitt, the team's third in five games, convinced him the Wildcats, at least on occasion, had to be bigger to be better.
Against Syracuse's mammoth frontcourt and Cincinnati's league-leading rebounders, Wright opted to start 6-10 freshman Mouphtaou Yarou and bring point guard Corey Fisher off the bench. It didn't help against Syracuse, although it's hard to say what might have. It definitely was a plus against the Bearcats, who finished with only a plus-three rebounding edge and shot just .394 from the floor.
"It's nice to be able to go both ways, for him," Cincinnati coach Mick Cronin said. "When he gets in the NCAA Tournament, it depends on who he plays. Obviously, when they go bigger, they're going to be better defensively. When they're smaller, they're going to be better offensively."
Wright prefers to play a style in which all of his guys save for the point guard are essentially positionless. He wants them all to be "basketball players." Yarou, because he missed much of the season with an injury, isn't there yet.
"I think we can get a lot better within this season, but we're running out of games," Wright said. "I'm trying to figure out every possible way, but we've got five veterans and six first-year guys.
"We're trying to play as many games as we can, so we can get better. Really, all we're guaranteed to play right now is three more games. We might only have two games to get it there. Is that enough? I don't know. But we made the commitment to try."
Wright met with the team to explain the changes and how some might need to be patient as they develop. How a particular game unfolds might mean there is less need for a particular player; for instance, freshman point Maalik Wayns gave the team 13 minutes and three assists against Cincinnati after getting only 11 minutes combined in the past two games.
Every team that makes the NCAA Tournament is, to some extent, is at the mercy of the bracket. A team that gets comfortable matchups might reach the Final Four -- kind of like Villanova last year.
It's doubly true for the Wildcats this season because the nature of their opponents likely will dictate how they want to play. If they wind up against a terrific but smallish team -- Butler? New Mexico? -- they won't need to worry about their size. If they're up against Kentucky or Kansas, they might have to break out the bigs.
"That's our struggle," Wright said. "No one talks about it. They either talk about, 'They're playing great' or 'What's wrong with them?' When really, we're just evolving."
Mike DeCourcy is a writer for Sporting News. E-mail him at decourcy@sportingnews.com.
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