Fans of college basketball might have wandered across Big Monday on ESPN last night to catch the No. 4 Villanova Wildcats take on the battered and beleagureed Louisville Cardinals. In a hotly contested matchup in the City of Brotherly Love, the game got physical, which would lead you to believe that the bigger team was able to forge ahead and grab a victory. Louisville is by far the bigger squad, but two things need to be taken into account before you check the scoreboard or assume they came out on top.
A.) The Cats are tough at home, whether it be at the “Ski Lodge” (Dupont Pavilion) on their Main Line campus or at the Wachovia Center down in South Philly, and
B.) This is not a run-of-the-mill “little guy” college basketball team.
I will admit bias right now. I am a Villanova fan (shocking to those of you who have read my Philly-based dribblings before I am sure). I have been ever since I was 11 and Rollie Massimino’s boys, led by the coked-up Gary McClain, shocked the Hoyas of Georgetown and Patrick Ewing to win the national title. It is the one sport in which my favorite team has been chosen via the bandwagon. I usually frown upon that, but I was 10 years old. None of my family had ever gone to college, except night classes taken later in life by my pop I believe. I had three snotty-ass cousins who went to Penn State, and I couldn’t stand how they never shut up about it so that place was out. When the story of little Nova became rampant in the Philly news, that was my first real introduction to college basketball, so they were my first reference since my dad referred to basketball by a couple of names that are inappropriate for this blog.
That year, the Final 4 contained 3 Big East teams (G-town and St. John’s) so I also fell in love with East Coast college hoops, and continue to be a Big East fan on the whole. It’s exciting to see 6 of the top 25 coming out of the conference right now.
Even if I was not a Nova fan right now, it would be hard not to like this team. They start 4 guards (Allen Ray, Randy Foye, Mike Nardi and Kyle Lowry). Ray and Foye are All-American candidates, and Foye is in the running for national player of the year. Many believe if it wasn’t for Gonzaga’s Adam Morrison he would have it sown up. Both are spot on 3-ball shooters with the ability to elevate and square their bodies off the dribble to hit the jumper. Lowry is a spark plug. Only a sophomore standing at 6 feet, he found himself last night covering 6′11″ center David Padgett, and frustrating the hell out of the big man. Obviously a mismatch, it created such incredible mismatches of speed on the other end of the court that Louisville couldn’t take advantage of it. Lowry is a fearless and skilled penetrator whose ability to kick it out to the shooters of Villanova is stupendous. One of those shooters is Nardi, whose wiry frame and skinned head makes him look like a leader of the Arian nation, rather than a spot up shooter with a bullseye from the corner.
There are nights when Nova comes out cold, but it seems that one of these four is constantly there to pick up for the others. The amazing thing is that they are without perhaps their best player, Curtis Sumpter, who was injured before the season and will probably sit out the year with a medical redshirt. Will Sheridan and the oft-injured Jason Fraser add some rebounding, but Villanova, with 4 guards, have outrebounded their opponents this season.
They say guards win at tourney time, well, after watching the scatter-brained enthusiasm and speed that darted up and down that court last night, I’m making an early call. As long as they can secure a No. 2 seed, Villanova will be heading back to the Final 4 for the first time since 1985.