The road to relevancy and triumph is a journey that requires a day-to-day devotion to the grind yet an ignorance of hebetude, but the trials of redemption entail something even greater. It necessitates the prior despite seeing its dividends unpaid the first time around. For Jay Wright and his Villanova Wildcats that debt was finally paid forward with its overwhelming 95-51 defeat of Oklahoma to advance the NCAA Championship game after suffering through NCAA Tournament exists as significant favorites the last two seasons.
In the resounding victory, Villanova’s stick-em-style perimeter defense flummoxed the Sooners with pristine footwork and swiping hands that resembled windshield wipers as the pilfered possessions from Oklahoma. Even when the Sooners’ perimeter combination trio of Buddy Hield, Isaiah Cousins and James Woodard were able to dodge the active hands of the Wildcats, they often elevated only to see an outstretched hand clouding a view of the rim.
The disciplined defense of Villanova forced 16 turnovers and allocated a 31.7 percent shooting clip, including a morbid 6-27 mark from 3. While the Wildcats’ diligence in hedging ball screens and mucking up rim rolls out of pick-and-rolls, Oklahoma didn’t provide a suitable counter with its languid ball and player movement.
Oklahoma has been wounded and faced deficits in the NCAA Tournament before, however, only for Hield to undertake his meritocratic leadership status and bust out his lethal 3-point bombing and careening drives to the hoop, but Villanova finally provided the antidote to Hield’s heroics, vacuuming up his air space when he possessed the ball and deftly tracking him off of it. By game’s end, Hield had managed just nine points on 4-12 shooting to go with four turnovers as he was cast into Villanova’s Big 12 purgatory alongside Perry Ellis and Bill Self.
In contrast took the shooting of the Sooners, which succumbed to the transmogrifying effects of NRG Arena when it comes to shooting, Villanova buried the Sooners and scorched the nets, knocking down their attempts at a 71.4 percent rate, including 11-18 from downtown. Unlike Oklahoma, Jay Wright, who continued his urbane attire choices with a sleek pinstripe suit, demanded consistent off-ball movement in accordance with his four-out motion offense, however, it the team’s efficient scoring output was buoyed by combo guard Josh Hart.
Hart repeatedly sliced into the lane off pick-and-rolls before utilizing a stout jump stop and elevating for layups and jumpers in the lane. Even when Hart met resistance, his sturdy body positioning afforded himjust enough space to keep the Nova offense humming as he amassed 23 points four assists and eight rebounds while going 10-12 from the field.
Even when the Sooners stopped the Wildcats’ initial action, which often featured Hart, the long closeouts to the perimeter proved too onerous as Oklahoma yielded lanes to the rim, which Villanova’s guards exploited with pump-and-go drives.
In addition to the play of its perimeter players, Villanova teased Oklahoma’s big men with the complementary strengths of its own big man pairing in Daniel Ochefu and Kris Jenkins. Wright brilliantly positioned Jenkins above the attention-drawing post ups of Ochefu, which made Oklahoma’s Ryan Spangler the primary help defender tasked with digging down on Ochefu before recovering to the stretchy Jenkins. Spangler, who isn’t accustomed to defending on the perimeter, expectantly struggled, losing track of Jenkins on multiple occasions.
Eventually amidst Villanova’s continual shot making and feisty perimeter defense, the floodgates opened and Wright and his squad boarded the vessel that kept its ultimate redemptive destination within plain sight.
