Nova up next for WVU
West Virginia had to go through a one-time familiar opponent to get the Sweet 16 and now it’s going to have to clear another if it wants to keep dancing onto the next round.
After beating Marshall, a team that the Mountaineers have now played 45 times compared to the lone meeting against Murray State in the opener, the focus will shift to old conference mate Villanova.
The two have met 42 times in the past and 24 of those were members of the Big East.
But the last meeting between the two was in 2011, a much different style of Mountaineers team, and an 83-69 victory inside the Coliseum. That was a West Virginia team before its current make over with the press defense.
Head coach Bob Huggins is obviously familiar with Villanova but believes his team is confident at this time of the year even though he doesn't know too much about this group of Wildcats which has been ranked at the top of college basketball all season.
“We spend so much time looking at film of who we’re going to play that we really don’t watch a lot of basketball from other leagues and things,” Huggins said. “I’ve seen bits and pieces and you know, the highlights on ESPN. But I don’t know very much about them.”
That will change in short order.
This Wildcats team is one of the nation’s best as evident by the top seed in the region, rolling up a 32-4 mark and hasn’t lost a game since Feb. 24 reeling off seven wins in a row. Two of those have come in this tournament where Villanova has easily dispatched Radford and Alabama.
West Virginia by the same token has played impressive in controlling in Murray State and Marshall in the first two rounds of the tournament to place itself in the Sweet 16. The Mountaineers have shot over 50-percent in both games while forcing their opponents into mistakes and speeding them up.
Confidence hasn’t been an issue for this Mountaineers club but that will be put to the test against Nova.
“These guys have kept their heads up. We’ve lost probably five or six games and when you look back we should have, could have won,” Huggins said. “We didn’t win because we didn’t make plays we needed to make. But other than Germany we’ve been right there every game.”
The Wildcats have six players that score in double-figures led by junior guard Jalen Brunson at 19 points per contest, followed by junior guard Mikal Bridges with 18 points. As a team, Villanova shoots over 50-percent from the field and over 40-percent from three having all the metrics of a top seeded club.
It’s a guard oriented team that seems on paper to be a difficult match up given their ability to drive and kick the ball as well as potentially navigate the press that the Mountaineers can throw at them.
Jay Wright, in his 17th season with the program, led the Wildcats to the 2016 championship and has won at least 30 games in each of the past four years with 29 the year prior to that.
Two old Big East teams are set to square off in the Sweet 16 with a trip to the Elite 8 on the line.
Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube page for more WVU videos and photo slideshows: http://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=VideoGlide
